Gravity
by Jukebox Hound
Summary: Wolves, humans, and the nature of monsters. Finding the Promised Land means losing a part of yourself in the process. SZC yaoi, Wolf's Rain fusion.
1. Prologue

**Pairings**: Eventual Sephiroth/Cloud/Zack**  
****Canon**: _Wolf's Rain_ + _Final Fantasy VII _(original game only)**  
Summary**: Wolves, humans, and the true nature of monsters. Finding the Promised Land means losing a part of yourself in the process.**  
Rating/Warnings**: R – some violence, lab torture, drama, some language, some implicit sexuality.**  
Note**: Something that might be a little confusing is the wolf-human thing. In _Wolf's Rain_, the wolves are able to _appear_ human without actually changing their shape or using any sort of magic. The title is taken off the anime's first OST.

**Word Count**: 847**  
Minor Revision**: 1 July 2010

* * *

**Gravity**_**  
Hades' Phoenix**_

**Prologue**

Heavy breathing, hot against his ear. Weariness pulling at his legs, weighing him down, making him stumble against the larger body that was the only thing keeping him upright. Cold, it was so cold even where he was pressed against the other, numbing his nose and stinging his eyes with icy needles.

"Keep going, Cloud," and that made him want to cry, he was so tired and aching, but he couldn't do that to Zack – he couldn't give up, not when Zack needed him most. He could hear the strain in Zack's voice beneath a thin veneer of optimism, and both could barely lift their paws high enough to move through the deep snow. "We can rest soon, but not yet. Just a little farther, Cloud, c'mon, I know you're stubborn enough to make it under all that fuzziness."

Once upon a time Cloud would have gotten so indignant at that, but he was mako-sick and so, so tired, the snowy landscape cast in shades of green and shadow and heartache. Him and Zack, it was just him and Zack now and oh, don't think about that. Don't. Don't think about Sephiroth or Aeris or how fragile everything really is.

The world was silent, muffled by snow, and empty. Him and Zack, just Zack, already the scent of the flowergirl was fading from his nose and the warmth from his silver packmate being forgotten, all he knew was greenshadowheartache and Zack.

And machinery.

Humans always made noise, they walked loudly and breathed loudly and their cities rang with constant noisy chaos. Cloud could feel the vibrations in the ground through the snow with his paws, sensed that the humans and their machines were getting closer.

Humans and their noise and their hatred.

"Keep running, Cloud, just keep going, don't stop, you hear me?" Zack growled breathlessly, his teeth flashing pearly-white in the night. His fur was as dark as the new moon but his teeth and eyes caught the starlight and the light from the humans' machines, reflecting off the snow in his feral grin. "They can't cage us unless we let them. They can kill us, but they have to catch us first."

Suddenly loud noises were making Cloud's head pound, rat-tat-tat inside his skull, the bullets surely hitting him the way they were exploding in the snow all around. But he was still running, Zack's nose and terrorpanicrage pushing him on, guiding him, and maybe_ – _maybe this wasn't so mad, maybe Zack had always been right about the Promised Land. Maybe that nameless ache in his heart would keep Zack safe and show them the way.

Then Zack jerked against him, and Cloud wanted to turn and ask even though the green was making it hard to find the right words to speak, but Zack panted, "Keep running, keep running," and Zack was never wrong. He couldn't be. So Cloud ran. But Zack jerked again, lost his balance, and the metallic reek of blood smothered Cloud's senses.

"Keep running, Cloud," but Zack was slowing, staggering, and the humansnoisesbullets were getting closer, the earth shaking beneath their shredded paws. No no nonono, that wasn't right, Zack wasn't supposed to fall behind, he was strong and wild and so much more than anyone else, he wasn't supposed to be bleeding like that. Through the green and the shadows there was crimson, too much, spreading through the snow like a cancer.

"Z-Zack," Cloud whimpered, forcing his body to turn, stay upright, go to Zack because the only place in the world for him was next to Zack.

"Keep running," he growled as he coughed up a surge of blood, pearly-white snow turning dark and dying. "You're the dream now, Cloud, don't give up, got it?"

And he fell to earth silently.

…

The soldier jumped out of the vehicle, wincing when his boots instantly sunk deep into the snow. Keeping his gun up, he stepped closer to the two furred bodies caught in the glow of the jeep's headlights.

_Wolves_, and it was like seeing something out of a nightmare, beasts that you thought were just your imagination but were as real as you, even walked among you pretending to be human. Two wolves, one large and black, the other smaller, tawny and longer-furred.

And so much blood. It was true, the way they said you never really got used to how much blood a single living body could hold. The black wolf was slumped over, obviously dead; the other was pressed up close, trembling, long nose pushed under the other's unresponsive head. The lighter wolf couldn't even be fully grown, was huddled against the dead body with small, breathless cries.

Wolves were monsters, stories still being told of how they'd once killed among humans. But as the soldier watched, something made him lower his weapon, long moments passing in quiet before he turned back to the jeep.

"Status?" demanded the squad commander as the soldier climbed back in.

"Both targets dead," he murmured. "Let's get back to Hojo, I want to let my wife know I'm still coming home."


	2. Chapter 1

**Pairings**: Eventual Sephiroth/Cloud/Zack**  
****Canon**: _Wolf's Rain_ (anime) + _Final Fantasy VII _(original game only)**  
Summary**: Wolves, humans, and the true nature of monsters. Finding the Promised Land means losing a part of yourself in the process.**  
Rating/Warnings**: R – some violence, lab torture, drama, some language, some implicit sexuality.

**Chapter Warnings**: Some graphic violence.**  
Word Count**: 15,208**  
Minor Revision**: 22 April 2010

* * *

**Gravity**_**  
Hades' Phoenix**_

**1.**

When Zack stumbled his way into Nibelheim, he wondered if he'd somehow managed to go back in a time a century or two. One just didn't find these kinds of sleepy backwater towns anymore, not since the Planet had started dying and taking its outlying ecosystems with it.

The end of winter had brought with it heavy floods as the snow melted from the Nibel mountains and turned the air chill. Trudging up the long pass, dodging the occasional sleepy dragon and the paw-sucking mud-holes, Zack wryly mused that he hadn't been dry for the last three months. His thick fur had acquired the distinct stench of mildew and each of his steps was marked with a loud squelch.

In the dip between two mountain peaks was a village, tainting the crisp air with the smells of wood-smoke and human industry, the sharpness of new thatch and the nose-wrinkling stench of garbage. None of that mattered, however, when he could pick out the presence of _food_.

Grinning to himself, Zack managed to pick up his pace and slip into the town. People were bustling around, shoveling slush from the muddied road, shopping, trading gossip now that they'd been freed from their cottages. It was already busy, but the sight of a stranger in a SOLDIER uniform carrying an enormous sword sent a wave of fresh murmurs through the village.

"Sorry to bother you," Zack said with a charming smile to an elderly woman, "but I'm looking for a bed and a warm meal. Any recommendations?"

"Aye, you'll be wanting to see ol' Haussler, he runs the inn around here about three houses down. Here now, what's a ShinRa doing out here?"

She peered at him nearsightedly, eyes nearly disappearing behind her wrinkles, and Zack put a sheepish arm behind his head. "I got separated from my squad," he lied smoothly. "We got sent out here to take care of some of these dragons."

"Nice to know our taxes are doing us _some_ good, even if they send us city boys," she sniffed, absently patting down her ragged skirts.

"Only the best for a place as renowned for hospitality as your lovely town," he winked at her. He earned a faint blush and a rough _harrumph _as she tried to cover her embarrassment.

"Yes, well, you be going on now," the woman told him archly. "I expect the mayor'll want to natter with you later."

_Great_. "Great! I'd be honored." He swept her bow and strode confidently down the street, hearing the woman _harrumph_ again in a fluster.

The inn was easy to find, practically miniature by Midgar standards but one of the largest buildings in the village. The innkeeper, a large, sleepy man called simply Haussler, gave the SOLDIER a room and a meal with little fuss, and for the first time in a month Zack slid into a hot bath with a full stomach and an obscene groan of happiness.

He could have died right then and there without any regrets. Naturally, this meant that after he'd hardly gotten out of the tub, put on a fresh set of clothes (kindly provided by the innkeeper's son), and made sure the bathroom was fur-free, the mayor was already waiting for him downstairs. Just to welcome a ShinRa official to their humble little town, of course.

Of course. _Goddamn fucking politicians._

Zack pasted on an easy smile and shook the man's hand with a firm but polite grip. Something about the man's scent was slightly off, his expression a little too eager.

"Welcome to Nibelheim," said Mr Lockhart after introducing himself. They both took a seat at the small table by the inn's entrance. "How may we be of service to you?"

"Actually, I just got lost," Zack laughed. "My squad's supposed to be taking care of some of the monsters around here, since we were hearing rumors that they were interfering with the reactor. Unfortunately we weren't prepared for the storms around here. You must be a brave people, to live out here, I don't think I'd last a _week_ with this cold!"

He said this all in a such a way that Lockhart smiled, flattered. "It's hard, but we get by."

"Well, I won't be in your hair for too long, sir. I've got standing orders to wait a while in the nearest town if we got separated before heading back to Midgar, but I figure in the meantime I could take care of any monster problems you folks might be having. Anything big, smelly, and nasty?"

Lockhart took a sip from his coffee mug. "We do pretty well for ourselves up here, Lieutenant Fair. It's been a long time since the last time we had to worry about something our own boys couldn't handle."

"You know where I am if you need something done, sir, even if it's just to help carry the firewood. And none of this Lieutenant stuff, I get that enough from my superiors – please, just call me Zack." The SOLDIER smiled again, playing up the charisma, and was rewarded with some of the tension unconsciously leaving Lockhart's shoulders. Cheerful but respectful, he'd learned.

Their conversation moved to local gossip, the mayor talking about his town with the kind of exasperated affection of an overbearing parent. Zack nodded and agreed in all the right places, and soon Lockhart insisted on walking the SOLDIER through the market to introduce him to all the most important citizens. Thinking longingly of the warm bed upstairs, Zack agreed, and found himself trudging through the snow again.

"We don't get many visitors up here," Lockhart was saying, nodding officiously to a passing man carrying a bundle of firewood on his back. "Our last one was Master Zangan, who decided to stay and took my daughter as a student."

"Master Zangan?" Zack repeated with some surprise. "I've – _oof!_"

A boy had careened around the corner of a house and smacked straight into Zack, almost bouncing off the solid SOLDIER and into a snow drift. Recovering quickly, the boy muttered a vague sort of apology and made to dash off again, but Zack managed to catch his arm. "Hey, wait!"

He stopped, blinked, and wondered how he could have missed this boy's – no, this _wolf's _ – scent, something that was deeper and earthier than the humans smells around them.

"Strife," Lockhart barked, "what in the Planet's name are you doing, boy?"

Before the kid could answer, a group of three or four other boys came around the corner, and only missed running into the adults because they weren't moving as fast as the first boy.

"Sir!" one of them yelped at the sight of the mayor, but all of their eyes were fixed on Zack. He grinned at them out of reflex.

"You boys best be behaving, especially with a SOLDIER around." Lockhart likely meant it as a tease, but his tone made it sound more like a warning.

"Yessir," they chorused insincerely, still fascinated.

The boy in Zack's grip, however, had frozen, and was staring up at him with wide blue eyes. When Zack winked, his flush of exertion deepened with embarrassment and he looked away, and the SOLDIER couldn't stop his small frown when he saw the bruise darkening part of the boy's face.

_Bullies?_ He shot a glance at the other kids.

"And Strife," said the mayor with a distinctly cool tone, "I don't want to hear about you getting into any more trouble, understood?"

"Yes, sir," the boy ('Strife,' what a great name for someone so _short_) muttered. A swift little movement and he freed himself from Zack's distracted grip, watching with wary sidelong looks from under his hair.

Zack's eyes narrowed.

"You all run along now," Lockhart told them firmly, and immediately they scattered. Strife kept glancing back over his shoulder before he got swallowed by the shifting crowd of villagers.

"That Strife kid looks interesting," Zack commented casually as he and the mayor continued walking. Lockhart's lips thinned.

"Appearances aren't always what they seem, Lieutenant Fair. If I were you, I'd steer clear of the Strife family."

"Why?"

"Just better to be safe than sorry. We take care of our own up here, and while I certainly appreciate your offer of help, we have the monster problem under control."

...

Cursing himself under his breath, Cloud tore through Nibelheim towards the mountains. If he could get away from the houses and into the snow and rocky crags – if he hadn't been staring at the damn SOLDIER like a fucking _child_…

A stone hit his shoulder with enough force from behind to knock him off balance, sending him tumbling to the ground. In the narrow space between buildings, where he was cornered and out of sight from the rest of the village, Cloud was in the most danger.

"Pretty sad for a monster, ain't he," said one of the boys, named Bruns. The others sniggered.

"I hear him and his mum go howling at the full moon," jeered Gunter.

"And go dancing naked!" hollered Isaak gleefully.

"Nah, that's witches, stupid," snorted Bruns, beginning an argument of who was or wasn't right. Cloud had already shut his ears to them; he'd heard it all for years and developed a sort of numbness to it, like a poison. Instead he tensed, caught between the boys in front of him and a stone wall behind with houses on either side, and snarled, all white teeth and flashing eyes.

The others took a step back, but their sneers only widened. The one that had thrown the rock picked up another and hefted it easily, as though testing a fine weapon rather than a dirty clod.

"Seems to me we shouldn't let monsters go without being punished," said Bruns, and the first rock caught Cloud on the arm. He managed to duck the second but the third struck him hard in the ribs, yanking a muted whimper from his throat.

Just when he finally got his legs under him, haunches tensing for a desperate bid for freedom, one of the boys yelled out loudly as a large hand from seemingly nowhere fisted in his shirt.

"Quiet, brat," snapped the SOLDIER, hoisting Isaak into the air as easily as a kid does a rag doll. "One more word from you and I'll throw you off these mountains, got it?"

There was a pathetic whine of fear that the SOLDIER apparently took as an affirmative.

"Either of _you_," and he pointed at the others with that blade large enough to stagger three normal men, "want to tell me what the fuck is going on here?"

"W-we're just playing-like," stuttered Gunter. Despite his own awe of the tall fighter, Cloud couldn't help a small sneer at the other boy's sudden cowardice.

"Playing, huh?" The SOLDIER unceremoniously dumped Isaak on the ground and gave his blade a little twirl that made them turn a more sickly shade of pale. His grin was more dangerous than a dragon's. "In that case, I think I'll join you. Don't get much time for playing with ShinRa riding your back, you know what I mean?"

"I-I think my mum's calling," Bruns gasped as Gunter pulled Isaak upright, and the three edged around the SOLDIER and fled as though their heels were on fire.

The SOLDIER watched them leave with an inscrutable expression, but it quickly turned into a frown when he realized Cloud was trying to follow them. Throwing out an arm, he blocked the alley.

"Hey, kid, where're you going?"

Cloud didn't answer. The SOLDIER smelled like blood and mako and strength, with none of the sickness in his mother or the weakness in himself…and it _hurt_ to know that his dream was just that, a silly little boy's dream, but have it still standing just in front of him. Just out of reach.

"You all right?" the SOLDIER asked in a quieter voice, more gently than anyone might have believed possible of a ShinRa employee. Cloud reflexively winced at it, waiting for the jeers, the mockery. He kept his eyes down on the SOLDIER's worn, muddied boots, watching for the shifting of weight that would let him slip past.

"I'm Zack," continued the stranger, and _why wasn't he shutting up?_ "I got separated from my squad – "

"Bullshit," Cloud retorted without thinking, glaring up through spiky bangs, nostrils instinctively flaring to take in scent. "You haven't been around anyone for at least a month – "

Then his brain caught up with his mouth and he shut up fast enough to make his teeth click. _Moron_, he yelled at himself, talking that way to a SOLDIER just because he's also…

_Stop it. Don't think about it, you'll make yourself crazier than you already are._

But instead of planting a fist in his face, the SOLDIER (Fair, he told himself, not even considering taking the privilege of using the man's first name) only smiled more widely.

"No need to ask why those little sons of bitches were after you." A frown once more replaced his smile, making Cloud wonder if he'd ever met someone who was so free with his expressions before. "Why – "

Then Cloud saw that minute weight shift, and he darted forward under Fair's arm towards the street. But the man was a SOLDIER, not some backwater, bullying adolescent, he no doubt could have caught Cloud if he wanted to…

But he didn't. Without bothering to ask why, the blond smoothly caught his balance on the unpaved road and took off for his mother's cottage.

...

Zack didn't see the kid again for several days. When he did, it was early morning and still freezing cold with the remnants of winter. Now, he was never one for mornings, especially when it was guaranteed to piss someone off (namely, Sephiroth) but living on his own for several weeks in the wilderness had gotten him into the habit of long days with little sleep. Besides, after deciding to stay in Nibelheim for a week or two until he figured out what he was going to do next, Zack had discovered that most of the interesting things tended to happen before mid-morning.

The day he saw Strife again, Zack was leaning against a stall and chatting with the smith's wife, Brunhild. She was a tall, stocky woman with a certain way of seeing the world that both charmed and amused him.

"I told Ertsa that she was a right gossip and it was little wonder that the other good women in this town hold no regard for her ways. I made it quite clear to her that the way to a man's heart is _not_ through nattering in his ear, but the hussy is still convinced that she's the woman you've been searching for your whole life."

Zack laughed and winked. "Milady, if you weren't already taken by a man as honorable as your husband, I'd spirit _you_ away to the city with me!"

"Don't you be turning that charm of yours on me, young man," the woman sniffed, smacking him lightly on the arm with her basket. "I've seen your kind. A heartbreaker, Mr Fair, that's what you are."

"Oh, milady, you wound me!" he swooned dramatically, earning another light smack. He opened his mouth to continue, but a minor scuffle near the stall caught his attention.

"Don't get smart with me, boy," the storekeeper hissed at a familiarly blond, spiky-headed teen. "A hundred gil for the lot, and be grateful for it."

"Excuse me, milady," Zack murmured absently to the middle-aged woman beside him, and strode up to the other shop with casual confidence. "Hey, Strife, I've been looking all over for you!" he called out cheerfully, choking back a laugh when it looked like Strife was going to leap out of his own skin with surprise. "You promised two days ago to show me some of the trails. Oh, is there a problem here?"

Looking between the kid and the shopkeeper with a politely puzzled expression, he let his arm drape itself companionably around thin shoulders. Strife was unnaturally still beneath his touch.

"No," the shopkeeper said helplessly, shooting small glares at the blond.

"Great! So whaddaya say, kiddo, ready for those trails yet? Here, I'll handle this," he dropped a handful of coins on the shop's outdoor counter, "and we can stop by the inn to pick up a couple lunches to take with us. Sound good?"

As he spoke, he was gently steering Strife away from the shop and down towards the inn, noting and promptly ignoring the scrutinizing look from Brunhild. Other villagers shot them odd looks as they passed, causing the boy to pull his shopping basket closer to his chest protectively. It seemed that he was curling in on himself, trying to hide in plain sight, and after the scene with those three idiotic bullies Zack thought he had a good idea why.

It made a tight knot of anger form in his heart.

The innkeeper was, as usual, snoozing soundly behind the check-in desk. Zack prodded the blond into the tiny dining room, ducking his head into the kitchen as they passed and calling out, "Hey, Mrs Haussler, you got any of that awesome rabbit stew left over from last night?"

"Growing boys are bottomless pits, Zack!" the innkeeper's wife yelled back. It sounded like she had her head stuck into the dishwasher, muffling her words.

"Two bowls, Mrs Haussler, thanks!"

Strife didn't say a word during this exchange, though his stomach did. He flushed when his belly rumbled, finally managing to duck out from under Zack's hand before he could be pushed into a chair.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, keeping his voice down to a low hiss. As Zack took a chair for himself, he could practically see the fur of the boy's scruff standing on end.

"Waiting for food. All that housewife gossip's made me hungry as a wolf, and Mrs Haussler makes one kick-ass rabbit stew."

Strife went very still and quiet at the word 'wolf.' Then he finally, slowly, sank down into the rickety wooden chair across from the SOLDIER. His shopping basket was cradled between his bony knees, and he didn't raise his eyes from it as he murmured, "What do you want?"

Zack blinked. "Eh?"

"We're not rich," the boy continued in that same soft tone. "We don't have much land or anything, Mum and me. What do you want?"

He thought Zack was going to blackmail his family or something, especially when they were the _same_? _Planet_, he thought, _what the fuck has this town done to him? _"A first name might be nice," he said with a friendly smile. "Feels odd to go around calling you 'Strife' and 'that one cute kid with the bad temper.'"

Even with his head bowed, the sudden flush was obvious.

"It's Cloud, all right?" he growled, as though daring the older man to tease him about it. As if he'd mock such an adorable name, really.

"Cloud, huh? Nice to meet you properly. I'm Zack, but you already knew that. Oh, hey, heads up, kiddo. Food's here."

Mrs Haussler was a short, stout woman in a plain woolen dress and a spotless apron tied around her waist, and she was carrying two enormous ceramic bowls filled to the brim with thick stew. She was smiling until she saw Cloud, and then it wavered uncertainly, her eyes flickering to Zack.

"Awesome!" he cried emphatically, carefully taking the bowls from her hands without spilling. "I kind of tricked Cloud here into taking me through some of the trails around here, so this is my treat."

"I'll just put it on your tab," the goodwife told him, still glancing at the boy's bowed head. "Um, I don't know what he's told you – "

"This is perfect, Mrs Haussler, thanks!" he broke in smoothly, noting how the tension had flooded back into Cloud's thin shoulders. And after all his hard work to make him relax a little, too. Fortunately, she took the hint and disappeared without another word.

"You don't actually have to take me anywhere, you know," Zack said conversationally between loud slurping. The stew really was pretty damn good, he hadn't been exaggerating that part. "Planet knows I've seen enough of these mountains to last me a lifetime. Back in Gongaga, it was _never_ this fucking _cold_, I don't think my balls have stopped shivering since I got here. Gives new meaning to 'blue balls,' yanno?"

"You don't have to do this, you know," the blond burst out suddenly. "This...pretending. I don't know what you're playing at, but just tell me and stop messing around."

Zack slowed his inhalation of food. The kid's head was still lowered and it was starting to bother him. "I'm not 'pretending' anything," he replied quietly, well aware that the innkeeper's wife was hovering near the door of the kitchen; he could hear her trying to be sneaky. "Anybody back in SOLDIER could tell you that I don't play with people like that. If someone was being harassed the way you always seem to be, I'd do the same thing.

"Besides," and he reached across the table to lightly poke him on the top of the head, "our kind's got to stick together, yeah? We've only got ourselves in this world, and trust me, it's a lot more fun to wreak chaos when you've got company."

Cloud finally lifted his face and looked Zack in the eye for the first time. Zack, still leaning across the table, had moved his hand to rest on the blond's shoulder, and for once the kid didn't try to twist away. There was still suspicion in those blue eyes, a reluctance to hope for anything, but as far as he was concerned it was also a start.

"Right," Cloud agreed softly, and gave a little half-smile that made a rather squishy part of Zack's brain coo at the sight.

...

"Hey, Spike!"

Cloud twitched violently, nearly dropping the armful of firewood he was carrying from the nearest part of the forest. He turned to find the SOLDIER running up to him with a silly expression, totally ignoring the looks they got from the few townspeople lingering around Nibelheim's outskirts.

"What?" he asked cautiously.

"I'm bored, so I thought I'd keep you company with my lovely self."

"You mean 'annoy,'" Cloud muttered, but the older man pretended not to hear.

"So, what're we doing today?"

The blond raised a brow with a significant look at the wood he was holding, as though to say 'isn't it obvious, or were you dropped on your head as a kid?'

"Um, does this involve using sharp, pointy tools? In which case I'm totally in, unless badgers or something conveniently cut this wood for us and we just have to pick it up. Which would be pretty awesome just on principle."

"…What?"

Zack put an arm behind his head and flashed the usual grin. "Never mind. Are we just going to end up burning this wood, or can we make something cool out of it?"

"…This is firewood."

"Right, right. So, just grab any kind of wood, or what?"

"Oak burns the longest, but pine's a good starter." Cloud caught the blank expression on Zack's face. "What?"

"Ah, nothing." The SOLDIER bent down to pick up a random branch and brandished it proudly. "Oak, right? Got it."

"Um, Mr Fair," Cloud started quietly, not wanting to anger him, "that's a piece of fir."

"Of course it is. I was just testing you. And call me Zack."

Giving him an odd look, Cloud bent down to pick up a few more branches, looking for ones without mold and that weren't too green or waterlogged. A sidelong glance showed the SOLDIER holding a piece of wood in each hand, one of them the fir branch, and looking at them closely as though trying to figure out the difference.

"That one's oak." Cloud pointed at the other branch timidly, keeping a fair distance between them. "It's good."

Zack sighed ruefully. "All right, kiddo, I'm listening. Teach the silly jungle boy what all these things are."

"Yessir. Uh, oak's good for heat – "

"How come? And call me Zack."

"What?"

"Why is oak better than, say, fir?" Zack waved the branches around like they were poorly-forged swords, forcing Cloud to duck to avoid being brained.

"Oak, it's…it's a hardwood. It's denser. Burns hotter and longer than softwoods. Like fir. Um, sir."

"That makes sense, I guess. And seriously, Spike, call me Zack. So, what's that poky-looking thing over there?"

He gestured at the line of trees that Cloud had just left towards a tall, spindly skeleton rattling eerily in the wind.

"Maple."

"How can you tell?"

"Most of the trees are evergreen. Maple's one of the few here that isn't." Cloud was definitely _not_ looking at the SOLDIER, wondering what the point of all this was. If he was going to humiliate the blond in some way, he sure had a strange way of going about it.

"Hey, let's make a deal. I'll help you carry this firewood back if you show me what all this shrubbery can do, how's that sound?"

"Um."

"C'mon, kiddo, I'm not going to eat you. You're way too scrawny to taste very good, even with a bunch of garlic and stuff."

"Am not!" Cloud retorted, then clapped his hands over his mouth in horror at his disrespect. This meant that all the firewood he'd spent the morning gathering tumbled to the ground in a messy heap, and he had to bite his palm to keep from groaning in dismay.

Instead of being angry, however, the man just laughed. "It's a bargain then. C'mon, let's go hoof it around these trees, and I'll help you afterwards."

As if Cloud could refuse a SOLDIER anything. "…All right."

"Great!"

What Cloud never noticed as he pointed out the shapes and colors of leaves, the particular twists of branch growth and the occasional animal den, was the way Zack observed him. The SOLDIER wasn't blind to how Cloud seemed to relax the farther they got from Nibelheim, how he gradually stopped keeping a wary eye on Zack's whereabouts and paid more attention to the plants. It didn't even take as long as he'd thought to coax a smile from the kid, and having to lug back the firewood (complete with dramatic monologues of cruel and unusual punishment, much to Cloud's exasperation) was worth the effort at getting the reserved young wolf to laugh.

...

Cloud watched in shy amusement as Zack shook the snow from his fur with a grumble.

"I told you not to step in a drift."

The grumbling increased, and the mild glare he got might have intimidated him if he hadn't seen that note of humor in it. Snowflakes tipped the dark fur like a thin layer of sugar, dusting long whiskers and ear-tips, and Cloud quickly pretended that he was surveying the trail in front of them to hide his smile.

Which meant that he wasn't prepared for the sudden battle-cry from behind and the heavy weight that pinned him to the cold, wet ground.

"_Zack!"_ he cried angrily, struggling back to his feet as the SOLDIER leapt lightly up the trail with a gleeful cackle. He couldn't feel the snow through the layers of his coat, but that wasn't the _point_. It was anyone's guess on why he'd allowed himself to be goaded into showing Zack the surrounding area outside the village, but then Zack looked back over his shoulder with eyes bright with laughter and mako and then Cloud remembered.

Zack was the same as he was. Well, not really, because Zack was everything Cloud would never be, but he was _the same_; he could hear the songs in the wind, too, and smell the sun, and feel the earth breathing beneath his feet. Cloud still wasn't convinced that there was no ulterior motive in this whole thing, but it was reassuring to know that if Zack decided to hate him, it would be because of _who_ he was, not _what_.

"Stop decorating the view and _come on_, Spike!" the SOLDIER yelled. "I swear, you'd lose your head if it wasn't attached!"

"Shut up!" Cloud jumped up several ledges of rock to meet Zack's level, keeping his balance easily. "I thought you needed me to show you around."

"Nah, it's always more fun when you get lost. Then we'll have to share body heat," he quipped, and Cloud was thankful for his fur when he felt his face turn hot.

"Jerk," he muttered, pushing past the larger wolf. It was hard not to be acutely aware of the sheer power in those long limbs. Without the interfering stench from the villagers, the SOLDIER's scent of old blood and mako smelled stronger than ever underneath the earthy wolf musk.

Zack laughed quietly, but not meanly, and he followed without further harassment. Cloud kept his eyes forward, automatically spreading his toes so that his paws wouldn't sink too far into the snow, and led the way on an old deer track that wound along one of the Nibel peaks. Somewhere below them were the distant roar of a nesting dragon and the occasional call of a wild bird, and the wind snaking through the trees made eerie, ocean-like echoes that always managed to make Nibelheim feel like little more than a bad dream. Up here, where few humans dared to go, Cloud could pretend that he was an extension of the Planet, no more monstrous or strange or unwanted than any other creature.

So when Zack decided to speak up without warning, Cloud nearly put his face nose-first into a snow-bank.

"How long've you lived here?"

"The ShinRa mansion's down that way."

"Urgh, let's not go there. And don't think I didn't see that as the crappy subject change it was."

Examining the question carefully, Cloud couldn't find any traps in it. It wasn't like the SOLDIER couldn't just ask one of the villagers, really.

"I've always lived here."

"Really? Damn. Me and Ma and Pops, we traveled around a fair bit until they decided to settle in Gongaga. Not much bigger than Nibelheim, but a hell of a lot warmer and humid. And the Touch-Me frogs, annoying little buggers – "

"The _what_?" Cloud yipped in surprise, turning to stare at Zack, who bared his teeth in a huge wolfish grin.

"The Touch-Me's. They turn you into frogs like them. Drove Pops nuts, let me tell you."

"…Stop bullshitting me."

"No, seriously, they do!"

Cloud narrowed his eyes, not believing for a moment that Zack was serious. He wasn't sure if he was being teased good-naturedly, almost like a friend, or not. In the end, he just turned back around and continued climbing up the trail.

"Hey, Cloud," he heard Zack say tentatively, "I was just kidding! Well, no, I wasn't, Touch-Me's really do exist, but I mean I was just _kidding_ – "

Then he stopped. The trail dropped off rather suddenly into empty space and the younger wolf had sat down near the ledge overlooking the entire Nibel valley, looking entirely unperturbed to be sitting so close to several thousand feet of empty space.

"…Whoa," Zack breathed, coming to stand at the other's shoulder. The Nibel mountain range had been formed of ancient volcanoes, leaving summits of dark basalt rock thrusting high into the atmosphere, and the end of winter meant that the snowy caps were feeding the creeks and turning them into raging rivers. The crashing of waterfalls resounded clearly through the sharp air and a thin layer of wispy cloud hung low in the valley below, giving them the feeling of standing in the sky itself.

"It's beautiful," he murmured in Cloud's ear, and the blond smiled to himself, secretly proud that he could show a SOLDIER something he'd never seen before. The dizzying heights didn't bother him. He'd come up here often since he was old enough to sneak out alone, to get away from the judgment of the village and his mother's illness, and if he half-closed his eyes he could almost feel like he was one of the mountain hawks circling the sprawling forests, free to go wherever the winds blew.

This was also the place where the longing in his heart was the strongest, like an invisible string tied around his heart and leading off to some distant, unknowable point. It was the same longing that had caused his mother's sickness, so he kept it carefully tucked away in a far corner of his mind where it could only come out in dreams.

"_Ack!_ What are you doing?" he cried. Zack had lain down next to him, pressed against his side and thumping his tail happily against Cloud's.

"Enjoying the view," came the mischievous answer. "Why're you so jumpy, anyway? It's not like I'm gonna push you off."

Cloud didn't say anything. Zack tilted his head to look up at him with one eye.

"_Have _you been pushed off?"

"Of course not," he said quickly. "Don't be stupid, no one would survive a fall from this height."

"…I didn't necessarily mean from here."

Edging away from the other's warmth, he snapped, "Look, I showed you some of the trails. I'm sure you can find the way back yourself." But when he made to stand (he was _not _running) he was knocked down to the ground for the second time by the same solid weight. Instinctively he went still, exposing his throat, but Zack was hardly paying attention to such little details.

"Why do you stay here?" the SOLDIER asked quietly, his chest rumbling. "The villagers hate our kind. They wouldn't be half so nice to me if they knew that I wasn't human."

"Get _off_ me."

"We're _wolves_, Cloud," Zack pressed, "not monsters or punching bags or…or whatever else people come up with, especially stupid redneck idiots."

"Yeah? What's the difference, then?" Before either really knew what was happening, Cloud had turned under Zack so that he could glare upwards furiously, feeling his lips curl back from sharp teeth. "The only reason you can say that is because you're _SOLDIER_. People _can't _hurt you, if they even wanted to! As far as the villagers are concerned, I'm just – "

He stopped and looked away, humiliated by his outburst, wishing the ground would open up and swallow him whole. Here a person as friendly and open as Zack was wasting him time with _him_, and all Cloud did was bitch about things like a teenaged girl as though it might change something. It was remarkably stupid of him, since he'd learned a long time ago that reality didn't favor the weak. He should be grateful that he'd gotten a chance at all to see a glimpse of his secret ambition, and that for the first time he'd met someone like himself and his mum. Maybe Cloud would never amount to anything, but…at least he knew it was possible for some people. That being a wolf wasn't always synonymous with monstrousness.

(That still didn't stop him from wishing that he had a dark hole to crawl into somewhere to hide from the rest of the world.)

A gentle lick across his nose made him twitch suddenly. Firm but careful nudging had him on his belly, front paws before him, and Zack pressed against him once more so that they were lying side-by-side from forelimb to haunches.

"Don't listen to them, Cloud," he murmured, rubbing their faces together and tickling the whiskers at the end of Cloud's muzzle. "We can see things that humans could never dream of. And with me to watch your back, there won't be any pushing anymore."

"…I told you I wasn't ever pushed off here," but Cloud knew that wasn't what Zack meant, and he couldn't help leaning ever so slightly against the reassuring weight at his side.

Wolves are social creatures. Just as human infants will die without a mother's touch, or as surely as heartbreak can kill someone, a wolf won't last long on its own; and though Cloud loved his mother, loved her dearly, he couldn't remember the last time she'd really _seen_ him and touched him. The warmth that Zack was offering felt like some kind of forbidden gift or privilege, something to savor before it was taken away.

"Zack, why are you here, really?"

He half-expected a joke to change the subject or another bullshit line about getting separated from a squad that didn't exist, but after a pause Zack sighed.

"You're the kind of guy to ask the really hard questions, aren't you?" he muttered ruefully. Cloud wanted to apologize, but figured it was better not to interrupt. "You know I'm a SOLDIER. Well, some people who shouldn't know figured out that I was a bit more than just a human lackey, and if I hadn't run with my tail between my legs my head would probably be decorating some asshole's office. With my luck, it'd probably be Heidegger's."

The last part was added in a cynical tone that didn't sound right coming from Zack. Cloud wished he had more experience in knowing the right things to say to make people feel better, but he usually just made situations worse. Instead he tucked his nose under the other's chin and made a soft whine of sympathy.

"Nah, don't worry, kiddo," Zack grinned, thumping his tail again. "Gave me the chance to see the world instead of the inside of an office."

Cloud returned the smile with a small, wary one of his own.

...

The apparent friendship budding between the popular SOLDIER and the decidedly _un_popular Strife boy didn't go unnoticed by the villagers.

"It's their _enchanting_," Ertsa whispered to anyone that would listen. "You know how those animals can look just like one of us. The boy's _ensorcelled_ Mr Fair, you mark my words."

"There won't be no marking of any words here, Ertsa," Brunhild said briskly. "You're just sour because that man has the good sense to know a bad apple when he sees one."

The other women hid their smiles as Ertsa flushed in humiliation. Her attempts to woo the SOLDIER, and her subsequent failures, were well known and gossiped about.

"And wolf or not, you let the boy be," Brunhild continued, this time making sure to meet the eyes of everyone present. "He ain't done no harm to any of you except take care of his poor mother."

"Nay, you'd let him be until he killed one of our own," snapped one of the women. "What if your good graces got your eldest a broken neck?"

"Strife ain't done no crime, Gretchen. Keeping an eye on him's one thing, but the bullying that your Bruns be doing is just wrong."

The woman opened her mouth to furiously defend her son, but Brunhild was quite done with the silliness of the other woman and turned on her heel to stalk away.

"You should've been a SOLDIER, milady," said an awed voice, making her jump.

"Mr Zackary Fair, you fair well gave me a heart attack!" she cried, glaring at the grinning swordsman. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that!"

"Sorry, milady, but I was enjoying listening to you ripping those people a new one."

Huffing, Brunhild continued walking purposefully down the one main street of the village, neatly sidestepping the deeper mud puddles, as Zack fell into step alongside her. "You watch your tongue, young man, I won't hear of such nasty words."

"Seriously, though, if you were at ShinRa during my recruit days, you'd have given us all a run for our money!"

"I certainly hope so. I won't have my tax dollars going to men that can't stand up for themselves." But the twitching of her lips gave away the amusement behind her stern words, and Zack laughed brightly.

"Yes, ma'am!" he saluted sharply without breaking stride.

"So, what has our esteemed Mr Lockhart been having you do?" she asked, pausing by a shop to look through the window at the freshly baked pastries. She did so love a fresh berry pastry.

"Oh, you know, the usual," the young man shrugged, putting his hands in his pockets in his characteristic slouch. He was a tall, lanky boy that radiated the sort of confidence that women like Ertsa found irresistible, and even the older ones like Brunhild weren't completely immune to that rakish charm. "There was an issue with one of the dragons getting a bit too close to one of the winter orchards, so I got to scare it off with my big manly muscles and kickass sword. Er. I mean, butt-kicking sword."

She hummed in mixed humor and acknowledgment.

"Tomorrow he said something about helping to fix one of the roofs. I guess the poor guy didn't do the thatch correctly or whatever and it got all rotted, but seriously, what do I know about thatch? We slept in our skivvies where I'm from, it was so hot. I look at half the stuff you guys do here and I'm already lost."

"You poor child. Imagine, learning something new."

Zack laughed again. "Oh, my young brain! I think it'll break soon."

"Assuming there's anything there to be broken," Brunhild chided him, tugging lightly on a lock of dark hair before moving down the street again. She decided she could wait until later for that pastry. "But really, Zackary, what _are_ you doing with the Strife boy? I'm sure Ertsa took it upon herself to tell you what he is."

"What, a wolf?" he said casually, and looked her in the eye. "So what?"

"Most would find that good enough reason not to have nothing to do with him."

"Good thing I'm not most people." He raised a brow. "And you?"

"I ain't too fond of wolves," she told him bluntly, "but the boy's done nothing. He and his mum keep to themselves, not that I blame them, and leave our business to our own. So long as they don't harm me or mine, what abuse do they deserve?"

"I can't imagine you're too popular here," he said dryly, and she couldn't stop a chuckle.

"I grew up in these parts, Zackary, but my pa came from the city. He always told me that it takes many kinds to make a world, and it don't do no one any good to go round judging people for being different when those differences might save your life."

"Practical."

"Aye, and something that biddies like Ertsa ain't ever gonna learn. Here now, Zackary, you carry these and I'll make you some lunch. My husband will be in the smithy all day, so there won't be no metal-smoke to flavor my biscuits."

She dumped a bag of fresh loaves into his arms and picked up her shopping basket again, weaving through the other villagers towards her cottage.

"Watch your step there. Now, I know the Strifes better than most, but that still ain't saying much," she told him. "What I hear is that one day Missus Strife come staggering into town, starved and half-frozen. Our healer at the time took her in, didn't take long to realize that she was a wolf and not just someone's lost dog. Most of the men here wanted her put down, didn't want no wolf anywhere near the village, especially a pregnant one. Instead they let her live on the edge in the old cottage left abandoned when Haussler's old gramps died."

As she spoke, she opened the door to her home (Zack had noticed that there were no locks on any doors in Nibelheim) and beckoned him inside. It had only two rooms, a small part sectioned off for her and husband's bedroom and the rest of the house for everything else, from cooking to eating to sitting. He set the bags in his arms on the scrubbed wooden table and moved to help her wash the vegetables.

"Where was I? Ah, well, a few months later, Missus Strife gave birth to little Cloud. I'd heard wolves could have several pups at a time, but maybe it was the cold, maybe it was just that she was too weak, but he was the only one. Sickly little thing he was, too. Midwife said it was a miracle he lived past infancy."

"What about the father?" Zack asked.

Brunhild shrugged. "Never knew who he was. Missus Strife ain't never breathed a word about him. Most reckon he just ran off, but personally I think whatever hurt her must've gotten to him, too, only he didn't make it."

Zack could imagine. He'd had a few close calls with wolf-hunters himself.

"I have to admit, though, I pity the boy. Missus Strife never was quite right in the head after the birth, never fully got her strength back. Little Cloud's been taking care of her the best he can, but he's only fifteen, sixteen years old. Life here ain't easy, and to do the work of two people before you're even grown…well. You have to admire his determination, regardless of what he is."

She quickly noticed that the SOLDIER was quieter than usual, almost contemplative, as he helped her in the kitchen. "Here now, Zackary, what're you thinking?"

He didn't answer at first, clearly considering what to say, but then he just flashed her that grin of his that was already becoming famous. "I'm not sure, Mrs Aldrick. I'll let you know when I do."

"Don't think that fake cheer is going to fool me, Zackary," she said sternly, "I wasn't born yesterday."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied meekly.

Without turning around, she added, "You know, I always did reckon that Cloud Strife might want to see the world. Learn more than just how to fix a thatch roof. Maybe find out where his parents came from."

There was a long silence from behind her, and then a thoughtful, "You know, milady, I think I know what you mean."

Good. For all the propaganda that ShinRa spouted, she knew that at least _one_ SOLDIER had to have some sense.

...

Cloud had agreed to meet him here at the inn so that they could go hiking up in the mountains again. Mayor Lockhart had told Zack that a monster was plaguing the reactor up there, and the SOLDIER had promised Cloud that he could come and help out. Might be good to give the kid some experience. Assuming the blond ever showed up.

After ten minutes had passed from their appointed meeting time (patience was never known to be one of his virtues) Zack decided to hell with waiting and went looking for Cloud himself. It wasn't like Nibelheim was very large, after all, and with his heightened olfactory sense, it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out which house belonged to the small Strife family. With his sword strapped to his back, Zack waved cheerily to the villagers and called out greetings without stopping to talk, heading towards the edge of the town closest to the mountains.

As he thought, it wasn't hard to pick out the scent of nearby wolves from beneath the human smells, and he followed it to a tiny, rundown cottage set on the very end of the muddy road. The thatch could do with a bit of work and dormant vines of ivy had curled around the stone walls, but a thin wisp of blue smoke rose from the chimney and a warm yellow light through one of the windows made it look more inviting, especially against the grey backdrop of overcast sky and shadowed mountains.

He rapped smartly against the weathered door. "Hey, Cloud, you in there?"

There was no reply, but he felt his ears twitch. No human would have been able to hear it through the thick stone and muffling snow, but there was the sound of a dish breaking and a panicked voice. Without pausing to consider it, Zack immediately opened the door and rushed inside, half-formed thoughts of Cloud and his mother being attacked by bullies in their own home flitting through his mind.

What he found was Cloud standing in the kitchen with a broken plate on the flagstones by his feet and eyes wide with horror.

"Cloud! Cloud, what's wrong?" Zack demanded, grabbing the younger man by the shoulders.

"Zack, it's Mum, she's gone!" the blond gasped breathlessly. "I wanted to make sure she'd be all right while we were gone but she wasn't here and I accidentally broke the plate because I freaked and I'm sorry but _she's not here_—"

"Whoa, whoa, breathe before you pass out, kiddo," Zack said calmly. "Okay, your mom's not here, so…maybe she went grocery shopping?"

"_No,_ she didn't fucking go grocery shopping, she can barely remember what day it is!" Cloud shrieked. "And it's not like she's got anyone to talk to except me, and – "

"Cloud, _calm down_," the SOLDIER barked. "You won't help her if you're panicking. Now, think, has she wandered off before?"

"Not for a while, she – oh gods, Zack, the mountains! She's probably taken one of the trails, last time she went to the mako cave and nearly _froze_ – "

"So we'll go to the mako cave first," not that Zack had any idea where it was, of course, "and see if we can't find her tracks. C'mon, Spike, let's do this."

For the first time Cloud seemed to focus on Zack, as though just realizing that he was there. "Wait, you're…you're going to help me?"

Zack blinked. "Of course, why wouldn't I?"

"I…"

"Look, Cloud, we'll talk about this later. Let's go find your mom first, all right?"

"…Right."

Being on the farthest border of the town meant that no one saw two wolves, one pitch black and the other a tawny gold, go streaking up the pass that led towards the reactor. Fur and muscle rippled with the speed of their flight, paws digging deep into the snow to push forward faster and harder. The cold nipped at their noses and eyes but they ignored it, straining to catch any smell or sound that would tell them where Cloud's mother had gone. Cloud himself was trying and failing not to think of everything that could have possibly gone wrong: tall cliffs, sharp rocks, freezing rivers, the dragons and monsters that ruled the wilderness here.

Zack, meanwhile, was having issues of his own, remembering soldiers that had gotten lost while in the unfamiliar territory of Wutai and been recovered too late, their bodies half-eaten by strange beasts or shot full of shuriken. He didn't want Cloud to have to see the corpse of his only family member because they didn't find her in time.

It was no doubt the extra edge of mako that allowed Zack to catch her scent first.

"Cloud, she's around here somewhere!" he called, and heard Cloud howling, "Mum! _Mum!_"

Running over stone and snow was making his paws ache – he couldn't imagine how Cloud must be feeling – but he pushed on, ducking tree branches and rocky outcroppings. Then he took a sharp turn and nearly lost all the breath in his lungs.

"_Mum!"_ Cloud howled again, throwing himself forward and catching his mother just a body-length from the edge of a cliff. "Oh Hel, Mum…"

Missus Strife was a thin bitch with the same pale fur and sky-blue eyes as her son, only they appeared clouded and unfocused. When Cloud knocked her to the ground, she let out a long, piteous keen that nearly broke Zack's heart.

"Mum, let's go back home, please, it's warm and…please, I don't want to be out here…"

She whimpered again, struggling weakly against Cloud's weight. She was so bony that her claws stood out sharply from the fur of her paws. "The Promised Land, Cloud," she whispered, "it's just over there, we can go now – "

The only thing nearby was the cliff, dropping a thousand feet to a ledge of rock. Zack felt sick.

"No, Mum," Cloud begged through the tears choking up his voice, "no, it's not. You're just hearing things again."

"Cloud – "

"Mum, _please! _Please, let's go home," he whispered, and she keened again, sounding so lost and confused and broken that it took all of Zack's self-control not to start howling alongside her in despair.

"Hey, Missus Strife, let's go find a fire and a warm meal," he said gently, nuzzling the soft fur of her throat. "I promise it'll be better than lying out here in the cold."

"The Promised Land," she murmured in a shattered voice, "the…the Promised…"

Cloud swallowed his tears, picked himself up, and with Zack's help they managed to get her to start moving back down the pass. She stumbled every few steps, still keeping up a monologue of vague whispers, but Cloud shut his ears to it and kept close to her side so she wouldn't fall.

It took much longer on the return journey, but eventually they managed to get her back to the road and into the Strife cottage. While Cloud led her to the small bedroom partitioned from the rest of the house, Zack busied himself with cleaning up the broken pottery on the floor. It would take more than a broom to clean up the remaining shards of Missus Strife, he thought sadly.

When Cloud brought his mother back out, her face had been washed and the soaked nightgown she'd disappeared in replaced with a simple, but clean, smock dress. She stared at Zack uncomprehendingly through the damp strands of yellow hair framing her face.

"Um, Zack, this is my mum, Elfreda. Mum, this is Zack," Cloud said quietly, doing a frighteningly good job at covering up the roughness of his voice. "He's a…a friend from the village."

Missus Strife smiled absently at the SOLDIER. "That's nice, dear. You don't bring very many friends home. It's lovely to meet you, Zack."

"Uh, yeah, you too," he answered, smiling back on reflex and wondering if this woman had split personalities or something. Cloud was standing at his mother's shoulder and watching him with anxious, humiliated eyes, and suddenly Zack's smile felt more real and gentle. "You have a beautiful home, Missus Strife. After living in the barracks for so long you forget what a real house looks like."

"Oh? Are you a SOLDIER, then?" she asked pleasantly, moving to the kitchen and started to wash the half-finished dishes. Because there was already soapy water in the stone sink, she must have walked off right in the middle of doing them, but she didn't seem to notice anything odd. "Cloud's wanted to be a SOLDIER since he first learned how to read the newspaper."

Cloud flushed, looking away, as Zack glanced at him in surprise. He'd noticed the sidelong glances of course, but he'd just chalked it up to the usual awed reaction people had at seeing a real SOLDIER. He'd had no idea that Cloud seriously wanted to _be_ one.

"Yep, a hero through and through, saving damsels in distress one lady at a time!" Zack grinned cheekily, striking a silly pose. Though Missus Strife's laugh was brittle, at least it was sincere, and Zack never minded a little embarrassment if it made people's days a bit happier.

"Why don't you boys go outside for a while I make us something to eat," she said.

"Will…will you be all right, Mum?" Cloud spoke up for the first time, looking timid.

"Of course, dear, I won't be attacked by monsters in my own home. Now shoo and let me make something."

"Yes, Mum," he said obediently, grabbing Zack's sleeve and pulling him out of the cottage. As soon as the door closed, he sat down hard on the front step and buried his face in his hands. Without thinking, Zack sat down beside him and slung an arm around Cloud's shoulders.

"Please just go away," said the blond's muffled voice.

"Why?"

Cloud didn't answer, and really, he didn't need to. But leaving Cloud by himself probably wasn't the brightest idea at the moment.

"You know, I once knew this guy that – "

"Zack, stop," Cloud muttered tiredly. "Just…stop."

He did, but he didn't take his arm from Cloud's shoulders, and he watched the slow changing of the grey storm-clouds overhead. The usual sounds of a town working to repair itself after a long winter drifted in their direction, muted by distance and atmosphere.

"She wasn't always this bad," Cloud whispered after a while, staring blankly ahead. The way he wrapped his arms around his knees and hugged them made him look half his age. "When I was little, she'd stop and just…space out for a little bit, you know? But lately it's been getting worse. She has nightmares more often. Doesn't sleep much. And…well, you saw her."

"Has she ever told you about the Promised Land?" he asked kindly.

"When she used to tuck me in bed at night." He blushed at admitting to something like that, but Zack didn't laugh. "She'd tell me stories about it. About how it was supposed to be a paradise, where the moon was always full and the sun was warm. About how no one would hunt us or hurt us anymore. You could run and run but never find the end because your heart was the only limit."

He trailed off wistfully. Zack could feel how the words tugged at his own heart, reaching for the nameless longing that had first inspired him to leave his family in Gongaga.

Then in a suddenly flat voice, Cloud finished, "But she stopped, eventually. She started spacing out more and more, sometimes disappearing when I wasn't around. She doesn't listen when I tell her it doesn't exist, and I'm afraid one day I'll come back and…and she won't be…"

Tightening the arm he had around Cloud's shoulders, Zack pulled him closer and said very seriously, "The Promised Land _does_ exist, Cloud."

The blond jerked against him, eyes flickering to him with painfully obvious hurt and fury. "Fuck you, Zack."

"I'm serious. I wouldn't fuck with you about this."

"Damn it, Zack, this _isn't funny_ – "

Cloud fought to free himself, trying to squirm away, but Zack easily held him in a semblance of a hug to keep him still.

"I know you feel it, Cloud," he said into the blond's ear. "All us wolves do. It's what we're all looking for. You know there's something better out there, you just don't where to find it, or how."

The blond stared up at him with wide eyes, hardly daring to believe that the silent ache in his chest wasn't just him losing his mind to the same madness that gripped his mother.

"And I…I don't know how to find it either," Zack admitted. "But that doesn't make your mom crazy. Or the rest of us."

"Then what do I do?" Cloud pleaded, trying to hold back the tears. "Is it because I'm too _stupid_ or something?"

_Gods, he and Sephiroth are so much alike it's scary._ "You're not stupid, Cloud, got it? You're not weak, and you're definitely not a monster. None of this is your fault."

"Then why can't I make her better?"

With Cloud's face pressed against his collarbone, Zack heard it as a threadlike exhalation, as though the boy just couldn't find the strength to be angry anymore.

_And he's still just a kid._

"I guess because life just sucks that way."

"…Yeah," Cloud finally sighed against him. "I know."

...

What Zack and Cloud didn't realize was that in their mad dash to find Elfreda Strife, someone _had_ seen them, and that someone just happened to be the mayor's daughter. It wasn't because Tifa thought the SOLDIER was _cute_ that she was following him, she wasn't like the other village girls, the ones that giggled behind their hands and dreamed only of marrying well. Besides, Mr Fair would never look at any mere country girl 'like that' anyway. Then again, why shouldn't he? Tifa was smart and pretty and a good fighter in her own right, what did a city girl offer that she couldn't?

Not that she was looking to marry or anything. She was only seventeen, for the Planet's sake, she at least wanted to live a little first. See more than the same people and houses everyday. And the SOLDIER offered a way out. If she got him to agree to take her with him whenever his squad showed up…

Knowing her father had asked him to take care of some monsters up at the reactor, Tifa watched the man from her second-story window, where she had a good view of most of the village. Zack was easy to pick out in his ShinRa charcoals and confident stride, and she decided to wait until he reached the outskirts of the town before running to talk to him without all those gossiping old ladies staring at them. Strangely enough, however, he didn't continue up the path but turned towards the Strife cottage, where he paused at the door before suddenly throwing it open and rushing inside.

Had something bad happened? Pulling on her gloves, Tifa dashed from her room and down the stairs, thanking fate that her father was over at the tanner's at the moment, and ran across the street towards the last little house. She wasn't exactly _friends_ with Cloud, but still, if something had happened to him or his mother, it was only right that she help.

Before she could get halfway there, the door banged open again and two (_two?_) wolves streaked towards the trail that led up into the mountains. With a thrill of terror she recognized the light brown one as Cloud, but the other was as black as stone and unfamiliar; it certainly wasn't Missus Strife, but the only other person she'd seen enter the cottage was –

She froze in her tracks, feeling sick. She'd heard some of the villagers wondering why a high-ranking SOLDIER would waste his time with a nobody like Cloud Strife, and there'd been one or two whispers of lewd possibilities that most people didn't believe, but if Zack Fair were also a _wolf_…

_Monsters_, her mind screamed, but her feet were already moving to follow the two beasts, her heart pounding with adrenaline. Their tracks were easily visible in the snow, wide spacing between deep prints showing the speed and desperation with which they traveled, and her lungs started to burn as she leapt over boulders and squeezed through narrow passes. Eventually she was forced to stop when the tracks turned up an outcropping that no human could hope to climb without proper equipment, not even one trained personally by Master Zangan.

For a moment Tifa was desperately jealous. Wolves were faster, stronger, and more agile than any two-legged animal could even dream of.

_Because they're predators_, she reminded herself firmly. _Now think. You know these mountains better than anyone else in the village._ Usually because she was forever running from her father's overbearing presence.

_The bridge!_

Tifa hurriedly backtracked several hundred meters, then took another, more well-worn path towards the rope bridge that crossed a deep chasm in the rock. She'd only been across it once or twice before, and time hadn't been kind to it. She was very aware of how loudly the first board creaked beneath her feet.

But she pushed on gamely, determined to figure out what was going on _(oh gods, the SOLDIER's a wolf!_) despite her fear. The ropes groaned under her hands, the boards protested, and even the wind wailed through the dark chasm that she fervently pretended wasn't under her feet. Only planks of wood kept her from falling into heart-stopping emptiness.

A wild howl rose over the wind, not a dragon's but a wolf's, high and piercing and so incredibly lost; not the sound of a predator but a wounded animal, alone and despairing, and through the chill in her blood Tifa felt a pang of sympathy.

Unfortunately she paused too long on a board and, under her weight, the old wood snapped.

_Oh_ –

Too shocked to react, Tifa's fingers missed the ropes by a hair's breadth and slipped through. The wind stole the air from her lungs, leaving her unable to scream as she fell.

...

Apparently forgetting that anything out of the ordinary had happened, Missus Strife served a hot dinner of potatoes and rather stringy chicken to Cloud and his 'handsome new SOLDIER friend.'

"Thanks, ma'am," Zack chirped sincerely, "this is excellent!"

"Nothing does a body better than a home-cooked meal," the woman replied, smiling at him absently. "Are you all right, Cloud? You've hardly touched your food."

"I'm fine, Mum, just a bit tired." He pasted on a cheerful expression that didn't fool Zack for a second but which seemed to satisfy his mother. "We went up into the mountains today to – to find something, that's all."

"I hope you were careful, dear, those rocks can treacherous. More potatoes, Mr Fair?"

"No, thank you, I'm stuffed. And please, call me Zack. It makes me feel like my old man when someone calls me that."

Both helped her clear the table and clean up afterwards, and then she retreated to the small bedroom complaining of a migraine. Cloud was left standing awkwardly in front of Zack, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

"Um. Thank you," he muttered, looking everywhere but in the SOLDIER's eyes. "For helping me with…with Mum. And, er, that one day when Bruns…um."

Zack grinned and ruffled Cloud's hair with a large, calloused hand. "Don't worry about it, kiddo. I'm pretty low maintenance, no thanks necessary."

Cloud ducked away from the ruffling hand with a fake scowl. "Jerk."

"Oh, my brave and youthful heart!" Zack swooned, throwing his arms around Cloud as he tumbled onto the pile of blankets that served as the blond's bed. "Such barbed words to curdle the blood, to…uh. Hrm What rhymes with 'blood'? 'Flood'? 'Cud'? Ew."

"Idiot!" Cloud gasped out, torn between annoyance and laughter, and Zack loosened his grip just enough to let him breathe. The blond's torso was lying on top of his own, making it rather hard for Zack to resist burying his face in soft, spiky, sunshine-yellow hair.

"…Zack?"

"I'm a tactile person. Used to drive a good friend of mine nuts. Stop complaining."

Cloud was _not_ blushing, damn it.

Really.

He shifted around until he and Zack were face-to-face, lying on their sides on the sheepskins and woolen blankets that were his mattress. The older man was still smiling, as usual, but it had softened to something that Cloud wished he could keep.

"Do you think…one day…maybe, we could go look for the Promised Land? Um. Together?"

"Of course, Spike," Zack murmured, reaching towards him again. Cloud was expecting another hair-ruffle, but got a hair-stroke instead. "Just say the word and we'll go out and terrorize the world. Together."

"'The word,'" he deadpanned, making Zack blink before bursting into muffled laughter.

"Smartass."

"Moron."

They grinned at each other.

...

When Zack woke up early the next morning, it took him a long bewildered moment to remember where he was. He was in a two-roomed cottage, a bit like Brunhild's if only a bit more worn-looking, and was lying on a pile of blankets that smelled like sheep, wood-smoke, and Cloud.

Oh. That's right. And speaking of the kid, where was he?

Sitting up, it took a single sweeping glance to realize that he was alone, Missus Strife breathing softly behind the thin partition of her bedroom. Fully expecting another disaster, Zack was relieved to notice that a basket of snowdrops and winter berries was sitting on the kitchen table. Snowflakes were still melting from the delicate petals, meaning that Cloud had probably just brought them in and was going about his morning chores.

_I must've been more tired than I thought if he didn't wake me up_.

Reassured, he let himself fall back against the surprisingly warm bed and stretched luxuriously, reveling in the feeling of sleep-sore muscles easing and random things popping back into place. There was nothing quite like waking up without having to be anywhere anytime soon – unless, of course, you had someone lying next to you, warm and alive and comfortable. Zack pouted and promised himself to scare the wits out of a certain overly responsible blond with a tackle-hug, because seriously, getting up early to work? Wasn't so cool.

It took a while for him to muster up the willingness to get to his feet. He ran a hand through sleep-mussed hair, straightened his clothes, checked on his buster sword leaning safely by the door, and wondered again where the hell Cloud was.

(Sephiroth had once dryly told him, in not so many words, that Zack was an attention-whore in the mornings. Zack denied it because it wasn't like he was going to admit that Sephiroth was _right_.) He puttered around the cottage for a bit, cleaning up a few odds and ends and generally trying to distract himself while he waited for Cloud to get his skinny little ass back home.

It was while he was getting himself covered in soot trying to coax some flames from the hearth fire that he first heard the yelling; a fairly large group of people, from the sounds of it, and they definitely weren't happy. He couldn't pick out individual voices or words, but the overall tone was angry, even fearful.

_Now what?_

Setting down the poker, Zack slung his sword across his back and slipped outside into the bitingly cold air where the sun was still grey with morning light, casting a strange colorlessness over the village. He followed the sounds to the town square full of yelling people.

And the unmistakable scent of blood.

Fearing that a monster had managed to get into the town and hurt one of the villagers, Zack darted forward, pushing his way easily through the crowd. He stopped in horror.

Cloud was curled on the ground into a tight, defensive ball as Mayor Lockhart rained blows on him with a chain-wrapped fist. Blood streaked his face, his limbs, his torn clothing, the mud he lay in, utterly silent while the man screamed through his own tears.

"You could have killed my _daughter_, she might _still_ die and it's _all your fault_, you disgusting, revolting animal! Your kind killed my wife but that wasn't enough, was it, you had to take _everything_ from me – "

Every other word was punctuated with another harsh blow, the metal links coiled around the man's hand ripping clothing and skin alike; and all Zack could see was the scarlet brightness of Cloud's blood on his pale flesh, the way he simply held himself still as though knowing it wouldn't hurt as much if he didn't fight. Zack had fought in Wutai alongside General Sephiroth, had seen and done things that could still keep him awake at night, and the bloodlust he'd felt then came rushing back hot and furious until the mako flared violently in his body.

He was hardly aware of his beloved sword clattering to the ground or the howl of a third wolf behind him, all he knew was that _Cloud was being hurt_ and he lunged forward with his lips twisted into a snarl, a howl in his throat and wildness in his eyes. The villagers fell back, scattered, screaming in sudden terror as the enormous wolf lunged at Lockhart and bit deeply into the man's shoulder. Lockhart stumbled back with a loud cry and Zack let him go, standing over the smaller broken body with his back arched, tail stiff and fur standing on end as he snarled.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't rip you apart," he hissed, the words almost indistinguishable from the depth of his growls. He hadn't noticed Elfreda until she darted through the tangle of panicking villagers and curled, whimpering, around her son.

"He almost killed my daughter!" Lockhart yelled, pointing at Cloud with a blood-spattered hand. "She tried to follow you and you left her for _dead_ in the gods-damned mountains all night, she nigh well fucking froze to death, you _monsters_ – if Zangan hadn't found her – "

"That was her choice, Lockhart! If anyone should've been keeping an eye on her, it's _you_, as her father!"

But the hysterical man wasn't listening, too far gone in his panic and worry and parental terror, as one hand clutched uselessly at his wounded shoulder. "I should've known you'd try to take my daughter after you took my wife! It was a mistake to ever let _wolves _stay in this village – "

Zack was forced to one side as Missus Strife got back up to her feet and faced Lockhart. She was small for a wolf and decidedly too thin, but her pale fur was streaked with her only son's blood and her eyes were fierce.

"If you're so concerned for your daughter, Lockhart," she challenged, "then why aren't you with her right now, where any good parent would be?"

Her words seemed to knock the fight from him. His shoulders slumped, the length of chain dropping to the ground, and he sobbed openly into his hands. Zack gingerly checked for any broken vertebrae, lifted Cloud into his arms, and carried him back to the cottage. The villagers let them pass with mixed expressions and awkward silence.

...

The taste of hot copper was familiar and unwanted on his tongue, but Zack helped Missus Strife determinedly lick it away from Cloud's fur. She was whining low in her throat, almost inaudible.

The boy's injuries weren't life-threatening, he could tell, but that didn't stop Zack from desperately wishing that he had a Heal materia on him. The two wolves had to tilt his head carefully; he'd bitten through his tongue and was in danger of choking on blood. Wet muscle had been torn open, whole patches of fur missing, and though nothing seemed broken or missing, Cloud was no doubt going to feel like one huge bruise when he woke up.

Not _if_, but _when_, because Cloud was too much of a softie on the inside to give up when his mother was making those sounds and Zack was just barely keeping his rage in check. He'd only understood about half of what Lockhart was ranting about, but that wouldn't stop him from ripping the man's throat out the next time they met.

His nose led him to the small medicine cabinet that Elfreda kept by her bed, and together the two wolves managed to spread antibiotic cream and clean linens around Cloud's prone body. When Zack settled against Cloud's back and Elfreda stretched out on the other side, the boy's eyes opened just enough to see hazy shapes of vague color and shadow.

"Mum?" he whimpered, and Missus Strife gently licked at his muzzle, his face.

"Oh Cloud, my little dream-cloud, I'm so sorry…"

"S'not yer fault, Mum," he sighed softly, closing his eyes again. "Hey, tell Zack 'bout the Promised Land, Mum…like you used to tell me…"

With her wet black nose on the blankets next to Cloud's, sharing breath, Elfreda sang a song of quiet howls about a place where the moon was always full and a soul could run and run forever without ever reaching the end of freedom. Zack listened as he stared unseeingly at the far wall of the tiny cottage, breathing in the blood and pain that tainted Cloud's normally earthy scent.

Ever since he'd been found out as one of the half-legendary wolves and fleeing Midgar was the only thing keeping him from Hojo's lab, he'd lost any sense of direction. He couldn't hire himself out as a mercenary in one of the larger cities because ShinRa was actively searching for a wayward SOLDIER, and every plan he'd developed to sneak back into Midgar and steal Sephiroth away had been ruined by the presence of those damned Turks. That was, of course, assuming Sephiroth would be at all willing to throw away everything he'd been raised to know. And Zack…couldn't really ask that of him.

So he'd wandered around the map and eventually found himself in Nibelheim, where he saw his first wolves since leaving the military. Now that he'd revealed himself to the villagers he probably wouldn't be able to stay – it'd only be a matter of time before news of a mako-enhanced _wolf_ got back to Midgar, one way or another – but he couldn't leave. Not alone, not when he'd seen the life that Missus Strife and Cloud (lonely, determined, _strong_ Cloud) had to endure.

_The boss always did say you got attached too easily, Fair_.

He could feel Cloud's slow, stilted breathing, shallow but not dangerously so. The boy's mother was lying as close as she could physically get without hurting him, her head between her paws as she sang in a voice that only cracked a little; it was all this that made his decision before he realized there really was one.

The moment Cloud could walk unaided, he was getting them out of here.

...

Waking up that morning had been an odd experience. Cloud hadn't shared a bed with anyone since he was four, so when his sleep-fuddled mind felt that the fireplace had somehow crawled into the blankets with him, he'd practically curled himself around it. It took a little longer to realize that fireplaces didn't tend to breathe or make weird snuffly noises in their sleep, and he'd cracked open an eye to find he had his face buried in spiky black hair.

It was miracle no one woke up at his strangled squeak of mortified surprise. He rolled off the blankets with another yelp and smacked his rump on the hard floor, freezing when Zack made a growly sound and wiggled deeper into the blankets. When no one demanded to know what he was doing on the floor, Cloud pulled himself to his feet and winced when his backside protested its unexpected landing.

Figuring he'd never get back to sleep knowing someone else was lying so close, Cloud brought in some of the firewood Zack had helped him stack outside the house and borrowed one of his mother's baskets to pick some of the hardy berries that grew just beyond the town. He added some snowdrops for his mum. Then that basket went on the kitchen table for his mother to find when she got up, and he took another to collect some mushrooms for breakfast. They'd discovered at dinner the night before that Zack had a fondness for them.

He should've known something was truly wrong when Mr Lockhart, trailed by a fair number of angry people, seized him by the back of the shirt before Cloud made it to the trails.

"Are you happy with what you've done?" he yelled, shaking the boy roughly and knocking the basket from his hands.

"W-what are you talking about?" Cloud managed to gasp. He was shocked to see the tears in the corners of the mayor's eyes.

"Tifa tried following you and the bridge collapsed! If Zangan hadn't found her when he did…we still don't know if she'll make it, _and_ _what did she ever do to you_?"

"Mr Lockhart, I – I don't know what you're talking about, I swear!"

But of course no one would believe the word of an animal, and after more yelling and demands Cloud was thrown to the ground, his head ringing from the blow across his face. He was used to the bruises and scrapes from the other boys, but he'd never been struck by an _adult_.

It hurt more than he expected.

"Mr Lockhart, I swear – "

But the man was deafened by his fear for his daughter, his only child and the only family he had left, and the second blow caught Cloud on the chest, driving the air from his lungs.

Individual hits turned into one long sensation of fiery agony, and with an instinct honed from years of being bullied Cloud curled into himself to protect his stomach and groin, forced himself to relax as much as possible to lessen the damage. He could hear yells and cries and, above all, Lockhart's voice screaming for his daughter and wife. He could taste blood on his tongue and he wondered if this was the last thing he'd know. It would've been nice to see his mum one more time, reassure her that she could get on without him, and maybe pay Zack back for all those hair ruffles.

He hoped Zack helped his mum find the Promised Land some day.

He was vaguely aware of a shift in the crowd, the yells turning panicked and fierce howls adding to the cacophony. There was nothing but the smell of blood and flesh and the starbursts behind his closed eyelids, but it was all starting to feel very distant, as though listening from inside a cave. Someone touched him softly but he couldn't stop the flinch.

Then strong but gentle arms lifted him up – he wanted to scream in protest, his body was _not_ agreeing to this, but apparently telepathy wasn't one of his hidden talents because instead he was cradled closer to someone's chest. There was a heartbeat against his ear, a heavy _thump-thump_ that he found himself listening to, spacing his breath with each beat. Maybe it was an angel. Didn't they specialize in forgiving monsters?

The unbearably loud noises faded away and he was shifted once more onto something softer than ground, softer than even the arms that had held him. He couldn't help the thin whimper that trickled from his lips at the movement, but paws – _not hands, _they were paws, they were safe – combed lightly through his fur. Someone was licking the blood from his muzzle, taking away the metallic stench clogging his nostrils, and there was an insane urge to giggle when he thought that maybe the angels were really wolves like him.

It wasn't until the heartbeat returned, this time against his back, that Cloud realized how tense his body had been. Counting _one-two-three_ beats finally convinced him that, alive or dead, nothing else was going to jump out at him and he managed to open his eyes just enough to see some light, a little motion.

"Mum?" It felt like someone had shoved a thistle down his throat but that was all right, it was all right because his mum was there, focused like she used to be before her mind was swallowed by loneliness, and the heartbeat behind him must belong to Zack.

"Oh Cloud, my little dream-cloud, I'm so sorry…"

It hurt to smile, but he couldn't help it, not when she used the nickname he hadn't heard for years.

"S'not yer fault, Mum," he managed around the thistles in his voice, and closed his eyes because the effort was starting to hurt. "Hey, tell Zack 'bout the Promised Land, Mum…like you used to tell me…"

The darkness came back for him, but it was a gentle darkness, like a blanket being laid over his thoughts, and he fell asleep to the sound of his mum's singing and the _thump-thump_ of Zack's heart.

Then.

_Then_.

Then the night burst into flames.

...

Zack didn't realize anything was wrong until the stench of smoke woke him. Raising his head he noted that the hearth had gone cold, but his twitching ears were picking up the clear sound of something burning.

_The kitchen._

He turned sharply and was horrified to find that the thatch roof in one corner of the cottage, the very same thatch he'd helped Cloud fix some time ago so he could learn what the hell he was doing, was going up in tongues of fire.

_Holyshitfucknotgood!_

Cloud was still lying on his side, either sleeping or unconscious, but Elfreda was nowhere to be seen. Hoping desperately to the gods that she was taking a midnight toilet run, Zack shook Cloud as hard as he dared.

"Cloud! Cloud, I'm sorry, but you have to wake the fuck up right now and get out of here. Cloud!"

The boy stirred, letting out a groan and a weak, "Zack? What's going on, where's Mum?"

"We've got to get up, Cloud, c'mon," Zack repeated calmly but quickly, already nudging the aching and confused wolf to his feet. "I know it hurts, but I promise I'll let you go back to sleep as soon as we get out."

"What – why – "

When the blond continued stumbling awkwardly _(oh Planet I hope nothing gets infected) _Zack finally just picked him up and kicked open the cottage door. The sight that met him turned his body cold.

Every grown man and woman in Nibelheim as well as several older children was ringed around the place, carrying brands. In the false dawn light, the shadows cast over their faces by the fires made the world seem surreal.

_It's a witch hunt_, he thought numbly, unconsciously pulling Cloud closer to himself. _It's a gods-damned fucking witch hunt._

"What's going on?" he said flatly, as cold as anything that had come out of Sephiroth's mouth. The portly man that had tried to overcharge Cloud at his shop stepped forward.

"Getting rid of the monsters," he barked viciously.

"Monsters?" Zack repeated in the same wintry tone. "The only monsters I see are standing right in front of me."

"The boy's bitch of a mother killed Mayor Lockhart!" Ertsa screamed, jabbing an accusatory finger at him, and against his will Zack felt his eyes widen.

_What were you thinking, you daft woman? Did you think killing the bastard would make things better?_

"The man almost killed Cloud!" Zack snapped.

"You beasts don't bring nothing but death!"

"Animals!"

"Monsters!"

Zack took a few steps forward as the heat behind him came dangerously close to singing him, and was vindictively pleased when the nearest villagers backed away hurriedly.

"What happened to Elfreda Strife?" he demanded coolly.

"Shot the fucking bitch," snarled one man, which raised another volley of cries. The SOLDIER felt nauseous.

_Oh, Cloud… _It wasn't much of a decision, really.

"Cloud and I are leaving. I suggest you step aside and let us pass." _Or I'll tear every fucking one of you hypocrites apart._

"Just because you got a ShinRa uniform – "

"My name is Lieutenant General Zackary Fair, SOLDIER First, second in command to General Sephiroth." His voice dropped to a borderline snarl. "If anyone so much as lifts a finger in our direction, I'll kill him."

His name might not be quite as well-known as the General's, but it seemed the townspeople got who he was clearly enough; they cleared a path for him, and he walked between the lines of hateful faces staring straight ahead. Cloud made a quiet protest and tried to shift, but Zack whispered something he hoped was calming to make him still.

"Move your gossip-mongering selves!" a familiar woman said loudly. "Give me a look like that again, girl, and I'll tan your hide so hard your grandchildren will feel it!"

_Brunhild?_

The smith's wife pushed her way to the fore of the crowd, lugging behind her an enormous sword and panting with the exertion. In all of the panic, Zack had forgotten his sword in the town. "Don't think you'd be wanting to go off without this thing."

"Thank you, Brunhild." Lowering an arm so that Cloud's feet touched the ground, he braced the blond with the other arm and used the now free hand to swing the buster sword into the harness he wore habitually on his back. This blatant show of strength sent another wave of tension through the villagers.

As he picked up Cloud once more, Brunhild added, "I told you I ain't so fond of your kind, but little Cloud's never been nothing but a good boy regardless, taking care of his mum the only way he knew how. You show him something better, Zackary, all right?"

Zack gave her a small, sad smile. "Yes, milady."

Brunhild opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by another shout.

"_Fire!"_

Because the Strife cottage was made of stone and located far enough away from the nearest building that the slight breeze wouldn't carry the flames, the fire was mostly limited to the roof and everything flammable inside. At the moment of that one shout, however, there was an explosion and the fire billowed outwards with a roar like an enraged dragon, throwing the nearest villagers to the ground with the sudden flux of air and stone shrapnel. Zack was knocked forward to one knee when a rock struck him hard in the shoulder, Cloud groaning in pain when his legs hit the ground.

"This way!" a male voice yelled in his ear, yanking him upright by the back of his shirt. Zack didn't argue, already dropping back into soldiering instincts.

_Enemy unknown. Potentially hostile civilians. Course of action: run like fucking hell._

The flames spread across the thatch roofs like oil over water, lighting up the village like some macabre show against the darkness of pre-dawn. Part of Zack's mind wanted to run back and make sure Brunhild survived, another wanted to tear down Lockhart's house and make sure those _fucking_ cowards hadn't been lying about Missus Strife – but Cloud was a living wounded weight in his arms and he _couldn't_.

The man that had dragged him to his feet turned off the main road and down a side alley. "The fire'll be at the town center by now!" he called. "This is the fastest way out!"

His shoulder screaming at him, Zack ran as fast as he could and tightened his grip around Cloud until the boy gasped for breath, not missing how the man was apparently able to keep up with a SOLDIER First's speed. There was a crash from behind as something large, probably the water tower, collapsed and the light flared.

"_Zangan?_"

The martial artist glanced at him but didn't answer until they broke the tree-line. Panting, the man gasped, "I was there when Lady Strife broke into Mayor Lockhart's home. She killed him, but one of the villagers disturbed by all the fighting shot her down. The people decided they couldn't live with wolves and – well. I'm sorry for Cloud that nothing I said could stop them."

"What – "

"Take Cloud and run," Zangan commanded firmly, and for a moment Zack saw the man as a Wutaian warrior once more. "Remember that my people have always been a sanctuary for outcasts."

"Zangan, I – "

But the martial artist was already running back to the village full of screams and flames. Zack stared after him, exhausted and confused and wishing someone would tell him when the world decided to go batshit fucking crazy.

But he'd already made a promise.

_I said we'd find the Promised Land together, kiddo. No time like the present._

Cloud whimpered again in his arms. Zack moved as fast as he dared into the mountains while Nibelheim burned behind them.


	3. Chapter 2

**As of 13 July 2010, a prologue was added**. It was written even before the first chapter, but only ever posted on LJ.

* * *

**Pairings**: Eventual Sephiroth/Cloud/Zack**  
****Canon**: _Wolf's Rain_ (anime) + _Final Fantasy VII _(original game only)**  
Summary**: Wolves, humans, and the true nature of monsters. Finding the Promised Land means losing a part of yourself in the process.**  
Rating/Warnings**: R – some violence, lab torture, drama, some language, some implicit sexuality.**  
**

**Chapter Warnings**: Some sex, but only implied because I'm too chicken-shit to actually write it.**  
Word Count**: 10,178

Unbetaed. This is mostly a transitional bit, to be honest, so it moves rather fast.

* * *

**Gravity**_**  
Hades' Phoenix**_

**2.**

Sephiroth wasn't feeling much of anything as he stood at the window in his office and watched the tiny figures below scurry around on the Plate. They looked like insects, he thought absently, or a child's wind-up toys going through the motions in a city of monotone; mechanical routines, monochromatic settings, and each person as insignificant as the next. Grey and lifeless.

Except for the faint hum of the lights, it was silent in his office. Papers were stacked neatly on one edge of the desk, completed early without any distractions to interrupt. The sofa pushed against the far wall had been unused in several months. Without the distractions, without the color, Sephiroth's office was as monotonous as the Plate he looked down upon.

There was a sharp knock on the door.

Still in his own little world, Sephiroth turned towards it, opening his mouth without thinking to say _Za – _

Hojo opened the door with his usual scowl of bad humor. "You're late for your appointment," he snapped. "If my assistants weren't tied up in other things…"

"I'm coming," Sephiroth interrupted shortly, not particularly caring to hear the scientist grousing about having to run an errand himself like some lowly lab-tech. Still muttering under his breath Hojo turned and started walking away, apparently confident that the general would follow without question, and Sephiroth took a moment to get himself back under control.

_If Hojo had heard you nearly slip up like that…_

Hojo led him up several floors to the laboratories. The two of them earned stares and gawking, but no one was brave, or stupid, enough to comment when the famous General Sephiroth and the infamous Professor Hojo were _both_ around. The scientist made a sound of displeasure in his throat when they came to the labs and found President ShinRa with his Turks standing around the entrance.

"Hojo," the President said cheerily, smiling his oily smile, "I was under the impression that you'd be here ten minutes ago."

"I had to fetch Sephiroth," Hojo explained, adjusting the round spectacles on his hawkish nose. Sephiroth was a looming presence behind him.

"Oh, good, good!" The President clapped his hands together as though he'd just seen a pet do a neat trick. "I thought that this might be a good opportunity to discuss the company's future prospects, Professor."

Hojo looked like he didn't want to discuss anything unless it involved the President and a tube of mako, but knowing where the grant money came from, he swiped his keycard and allowed the visitors in with a minimum of muttering. As the President chattered to his favorite scientist, Sephiroth walked behind them, distinctly aware of the Turks' presence at his back.

A look from Hojo and Sephiroth seated himself on the edge of a steel table, ignoring the chill he could feel through the leather of his pants or the antiseptic stench stinging his nose. This routine was so familiar it was practically muscle memory; he was already pulling back the sleeve of his long coat before the scientist turned back to him.

"Have you had any more success?" the President was asking as Hojo filled a syringe with mako from a specially designed, carefully pressurized container. The Turks Reno, Rude, and Tseng watched carefully, the first looking slightly sickened.

"A sense as delicate as a wolf's predilection for the Promised Land is hardly something that can be _commanded_," Hojo informed him tersely. "I've been working on a procedure that should enhance Sephiroth's ability, but having a natural specimen would have sped up this process."

His sneer at the Turks was thinly veiled. Reno smirked openly, but Tseng and Rude didn't react in the slightest.

"Sephiroth is the perfect imitation of a wolf in every other respect," Hojo reminded ShinRa, who just smiled smoothly again.

"Of course he is, Professor, but what use is that to us if he can't find the Promised Land?"

"Might've helped if the flower maiden hadn't escaped, yo," Reno threw in brightly, casually examining his ragged nails, and Hojo's expression darkened. Tseng gave the redhead a _look _that went entirely ignored.

Sephiroth stared distantly at the far wall while the power-plays went on around him and Hojo slowly injected the mako into his arm. The substance was thick, dense, making his veins feel like they were trying to channel mud, and the spasmodic twitching of his arm muscles was made worse by the prickling sensation growing on his skin. Fixing his eyes on a single point on the wall gave him the control to keep his expression entirely blank, even with Hojo's stare scrutinizing him with a peculiar intensity.

_I could run_, he mused. _I could slaughter them before any of the Turks could raise their weapons._

He could. But he didn't.

"Wutai was the last place on this Planet to resist me," the President was saying. "The only thing left to do is find the Promised Land. Whatever it takes."

This drew Sephiroth's attention, because though the man was speaking in the same condescending petulance as ever there was a new undertone of slyness. Even Hojo seemed cautious of it, for he growled lowly, "Sephiroth is _my _project – "

"Think about who's footing your bill and covering up your little side projects, Professor, and then reconsider," ShinRa replied, chortling. "I want results on your next departmental report, Hojo, or I'm pulling the plug on your lab."

Hojo's expression had never been so full of hate.

...

It was a good thing that when Cloud talked about surviving in the mountains, Zack had been listening. When the adrenaline started wearing off and the sounds of screams and crackling flames no longer echoed through the valley, even Cloud's slight weight was beginning to feel like a burden in the SOLDIER's arms. He kept his eyes open for a safe place to stop. Unfortunately, with exhaustion blurring his wits all he could see in the dim moonlight was the shifting of shadow in an already dark landscape.

When he stumbled onto a roughly circular ring of trees, Zack gently laid Cloud at the base of a wide trunk and began digging into the snow. It was icy from alternately melting and freezing over again, and it didn't take long before the pads of his paws turned cold and raw; but he persevered, doggedly scraping away until a shallow, concave hole was made. Then he carefully maneuvered Cloud into the makeshift den, which was just deep enough for two wolves to be out of both sight and wind, and finally curled himself as tightly as he could around the smaller wolf without aggravating the other's wounds.

Then the exhaustion finally caught up with him. The sudden fear, the anger (the _betrayal_; Zack himself didn't feel any obligation for the villagers, but Cloud had been born and raised alongside those people's _children_, damn them), the fire, the running…he had gone through worse in Wutai but at least he could expect those kinds of things there. Places like Nibelheim, what few were left in a dying world, weren't supposed to leave someone with a knife in his back.

Or bullets in a mother's body.

Cloud's breathing was shallow but steady, pale fur slightly singed in places and smelling of smoke, but his bandages didn't appear to have fresh blood on them. Zack pulled him closer and buried his own muzzle into Cloud's scruff, breathing in deeply the scent of youngness and tangled mountain wilderness to cover the memory of fire. The crispness of the high altitude's air meant that the SOLDIER had been followed by the stench of smoke and charred flesh deep into the mountains, at least until the wind had shifted. So many people – Zangan had probably managed to get out, but Brunhild –

With a long sigh and a bit of shifting against a dark-furred chest, Cloud slipped quietly from unconsciousness into true sleep. It was a reassuring reminder that although Zack couldn't have saved everyone, at least he had managed to protect what was most important to him.

He joined Cloud in exhausted oblivion, the two wolves curled together in a shallow hole scraped into the ground hundreds of miles from anywhere.

...

Cloud woke up and immediately wished he hadn't. Body parts he hadn't known existed felt like they were on fire, his limbs heavy and limp like noodles. It took a few moments for his nose to start working again. Strangely enough, said nose was telling him that he was in a damp, cold place that smelled like ice and wolf, certainly not the musty but earthy familiarity of his mum's cottage.

Sound was the second sense to wake up, and it took another minute to realize what he _wasn't _hearing. There were no muffled voices gossiping, no distant footsteps hurrying about on daily errands, none of the familiar bustle of early morning which had always managed to reach even the farthest-flung house in the village.

Had he been sleepwalking? Not that he'd ever done so before, but his mum sometimes did and didn't somnambulism run in families or something? Speaking of which…

"Mum?" he ventured timidly. Then, "Zack?"

When no one answered his raspy calls, Cloud tried opening his eyes. He'd learned over the years to do it slowly, letting his pupils adjust to the sudden light, but he saw from the red-golden light cast on the tallest treetops that it was near evening anyway.

_Treetops?_

"Zack?" he called out again, coughing and then wincing when his bruised ribs were jostled. Gauze was wrapped around his limbs and torso in white strips, slightly pink with blood in some places, and he carefully he turned over onto his stomach to gradually lever himself up to his haunches. He peered out of what looked like the mouth of a small den dug into the snow, confirming that, yes, those really were treetops, and apparently he'd taken to sleeping in holes in the ground.

Zack _had _to be involved in this somehow.

If sitting up had been difficult, however, then moving about was out of the question. Cloud finally gave up when he put his snout into the snow several times by tripping unsteadily over his own paws and resolved to wait. Whatever scheme Zack had devised to humiliate him, he would at least have to come back to make it happen.

Cloud was just beginning to doze off again when he heard snow crunching under boots and Zack came into view. His black hedgehog hair was a mess, clothes rumpled, and a stack of branches was being carried in the crook of a strong arm. But there was no jaunty smile, no lighthearted whining about forced labor, just a frown that made Cloud uneasy.

"Spike, you're awake!" Zack cried when he looked up, serious expression suddenly disappearing under the weight of a broad smile. The abrupt change made Cloud suspicious, but he didn't comment on it.

"Where are we?" he asked, coughing when his ribs ached, and then coughing some more.

"Um." Zack let the firewood fall to the ground and put an arm behind his head in a classic gesture of embarrassment. "I was kinda hoping you'd know."

"_What_ are we doing out here?" Cloud tried again.

But when Zack's smile flickered back to that uncharacteristic somberness, Cloud's unease deepened.

"What's the last thing you remember, Cloud?"

"What?"

"Please, Cloud." Zack let the firewood fall and then dropped to his knees in front of Cloud so that they were eye-level. Cloud shifted, eyeing him from under his long bangs.

"Um, Mum made us dinner, and then we went to sleep," a slight blush on his cheeks passed on unremarked, "and I woke up. It was hot. I remembered you liked those mushrooms we had for dinner, so I thought maybe I'd go grab some." Thin brows furrowing, Cloud frowned down at the snow in thought. "It was cold out. Grey. I think I heard someone yelling, and then…Mr. Lockhart…"

He tensed, suddenly feeling the blows all over again. How could he have forgotten, even for a few minutes? It was one thing for the other kids to throw rocks or garbage, but an _adult_ had never – well, not beyond words…

Zack patiently waited for him to find his bearings, for which Cloud was absurdly grateful. Now that he'd been made fully aware of them, the bruises on his limbs and torso started aching worse than ever, and the younger boy couldn't quite bring himself to lift his eyes. "Mr. Lockhart said something about Tifa before…before he started hitting me. I think I must've passed out."

The hand on his back startled him. Cloud was still getting used to Zack's tendency for physical contact, but this time it felt as though the SOLDIER was unconsciously reassuring himself of the other's existence.

"He pretty much beat the shit out of you," Zack murmured, making Cloud flush again with renewed humiliation, but the other's voice wasn't mocking at all. If anything, he sounded angry on Cloud's behalf, and _that _was a new thing. "Your mom and I heard the crowd and stopped him, though."

Now Cloud wasn't sure if he should be even _more_ embarrassed at having to be rescued, or guiltily pleased that he'd had someone willing to do so. But there was something in the way Zack wasn't quite looking at him that made his stomach tighten.

"Zack?" he asked. "Zack, what happened? Are you all right? Where's Mum?"

When the SOLDIER bit his lip indecisively, Cloud was feeling a full-fledged panic attack coming on. "Zack…"

"She's dead, Cloud," the older wolf said softly.

The world came to a halt.

"After we got you away from Lockhart, she went back to his house. She killed him, but the villagers, they got to her."

_She's dead._

_She's…dead._

After a long silence, Cloud calmly stood up, wobbling but managing to stay upright.

"Excuse me."

He brushed past Zack, who was still kneeling, and disappeared into the trees with a stiff spine and a frighteningly blank expression. His stumbling stride broke into a jog and then a desperate, limping run; his paws were nearly silent in the snow and he ran until his ribs made him wheeze for breath, stumbling around the bases of tall trees with pain and exertion. The sun was setting, casting long fingers of shadow through the twilight, and the cold had sucked all sensation from his lips, nose, and paws. The odd sensation that time had simply stopped still lingered, emphasized by the stark tones of shadow that the forest was fading into.

He ran until he tripped and fell to his knees, shocks of cold sending spikes through his palms. For a long moment, head spinning, he watched the way his breath puffed out in clouds of mist like tendrils of smoke.

"_Fuck!"_

A startled bird took flight as Cloud's fist smashed into a tree once, then twice, and finally three times before he slumped against the trunk, bloodied knuckles still pressed to the bark. He couldn't even see the contours of the forest anymore through blurred vision, and already torn-up muscle was protesting his lashing out by turning the gauze a deeper red.

It wasn't fair. Fucking hell but it wasn't _fair_, wasn't _right_. Maybe his mum hadn't been quite right in the head but she'd never hurt anyone before. Mostly she just stayed in the cottage and spent her days cooking and dreaming and cleaning, she rarely even went out to the market since Cloud got big enough to do it himself, and _it wasn't fair_. Cloud had never really talked to anyone else, the Planet knew Zack was the only person who had ever stuck around after the stone-throwing.

What was he supposed to do now? It was always him and his mum, a tiny two-wolf pack, but now he didn't even have that.

Shifting slightly, Cloud's shoulder hit the trunk, and he let gravity do the rest until he sat at the foot of the tree with his arms wrapped tightly around his knees. He'd never felt so alone.

...

Zack sighed and slumped forward. If there was a way to break that kind of news to someone tactfully, then he sure as hell didn't know it. The worst part was that Cloud hadn't let him get to the _rest _of it before taking off. There was a reason he'd always hated doing those next-of-kin notifications for fallen soldiers, but this wasn't the same as a casualty of war. Not really.

The SOLDIER went to work snapping the branches into more manageable pieces and throwing aside the wettest ones. He used the weakest spell in the fire materia equipped to his sword to light the pile of splintered wood, and he wished again that he'd thought to carry a Heal. Being both SOLDIER and a wolf there wasn't much that could take him down, but Cloud was only sixteen, not too many years out of puppy-hood. If Zack himself was only eighteen, well, he usually felt a decade older.

_Your failure this time was rather epic, Fair. _

Sitting with his arms resting on his knees, Zack stared quietly into the fire. The sun was setting and Cloud hadn't returned, but he didn't go looking for the kid. He trusted Cloud not to do anything stupid with things like high cliffs or pointy objects.

At least, until he finished sharing the bad news, about the whole fire and mass death thing. Sephiroth had been right, he thought wryly, to claim that Zack was a walking disaster. Perhaps the general had been referring to the way materia and weaponry tended to disappear around him, but Sephiroth had a habit of being correct even without intending to be.

When Cloud stumbled back, it was already dark. The fire Zack made cast flickering light through the trees, guiding the blond, and he collapsed into a shivering bundle of wounded boy on the far side of the flames. Zack stared at him for a moment before getting up and moving around the fire to sit close at the other's side, gently pulling Cloud's arm across his lap to check the bloodied bandages. He wished he'd had time to grab fresh linens. Not even a wolf was immune to infection.

"I suppose we can't ever go back," Cloud finally murmured, staring into the flames. His eyes were shadowed with grief and bloodloss and the pain of his injuries.

Zack bit his lip. Nothing for it but to just _say _it. "Cloud, there isn't a village to _go_ back to."

Frowning in confusion, he asked, "What are you talking about?"

So Zack explained that while Cloud had been unconscious, the villagers had tried to smoke them out of the cottage. Missus Strife's actions had made them paranoid and angry, and Zack hadn't had any choice other than to leave with only Cloud in his arms and the clothes on their backs. But the fire got out of control, spreading to the rest of the village, and without Zangan's help even Zack might have gotten caught in the inferno. Cloud was silent as he spoke, almost unnaturally so, and when Zack finished there was a long, uncomfortable silence.

"I'm glad," he suddenly declared in a fierce voice. "I'm _glad _they're dead."

"Don't say that, Cloud," Zack told him quietly, and Cloud gave him a vicious glare.

"Why not? Why _shouldn't _I be happy that those murderers got what they deserve?"

"Because it's too easy." Zack glanced towards the fire. "I saw it in Wutai, you know. It was so easy to be happy that the other guys were dead, but some of the men in my platoon…it made them into something worse. They started enjoying the killing because they forgot that the enemy was human too."

_But we're __**not**_ _human,_ was the protest that Zack knew was running through Cloud's head, _and they never let us forget that_.

"Cloud – "

"I want to go back," the younger wolf interrupted, making Zack blink.

"Where, Nibelheim? What the hell for?"

Cloud looked away with a scowl. "I want to see for myself what happened. Besides, what're we gonna do? We don't have any food or change of clothes, we're in the middle of nowhere!"

"Hey, hey, calm down, kiddo," Zack broke in, putting an arm around Cloud's shoulders. When the boy tried to shrug him off, he held on stubbornly. "First off, the full moon's just about a week away, and I once survived a _month_ without eating thanks to that shiny round thing. Now, Rocket Town isn't too far away, we'll go there."

"Fine," Cloud replied, but before Zack could breathe a sigh of relief, he continued, "I can't stop you. But I'm going back to the village."

Realizing he wasn't going to be able to change Cloud's mind, he reluctantly agreed on the condition that they wait until Cloud's body healed a little.

That night, Cloud refused to lie beside Zack. He isolated himself a little ways from the dying fire and curled himself into a tight ball, but didn't sleep, instead staring out into the darkened trees and losing himself in his own tangled thoughts. When morning came and the shadows were even darker under his blue eyes, Zack didn't say anything.

It took two days of doing very little before Cloud finally demanded that they move. Personally Zack didn't think the other wolf was ready, physically or otherwise, but once more that stubbornness didn't give him much choice. They set out at a slow pace backtracking the way Zack had taken them. Even though the SOLDIER's footprints had long since disappeared, his scent hadn't yet faded completely from the trees and undergrowth.

It was mid-morning on the third day after the fire by the time the wolves returned to Nibelheim. Except for startling a few birds they hadn't seen another living being since dawn, and now, looking at the village was like stumbling over a sad, desiccated corpse. Cottages were roofless and hollowed out, stones blackened, and the water tower had half-collapsed upon itself. Crows scavenged among the deathly silent ruins, every so often croaking at one another irritably. Zack and Cloud stood on one of the trails overlooking the village in silence, humbled by the devastation.

"Oh, gods," Cloud whispered. He took a few steps forward before breaking into a run, ignoring the pain in his ribs as he sprinted into the remains of the village.

"Cloud, stop!" Zack cried, shaking off his stupor and chasing after him. He caught up to the blond, but before he could grab him Cloud abruptly halted, nearly making Zack trip right over him. "Cloud, what the hell – "

But Cloud was ignoring him. Eyes wide, he turned in a slow circle, unable to block out the sound of still-crackling embers underlying the quiet or the foul stench of burned flesh. It was amazing, in a sense, to consider how quickly, how _easily_, the only place he'd ever known was reduced to less than firewood.

Zack watched as Cloud wandered along the main road in a daze, the crunching of his feet over charred remains startlingly loud in the otherwise dead silence. There was…nothing. Nothing but drifting ash and filthy snow and the beetle-black eyes of the crows.

The SOLDIER followed at a respectful distance, unwilling to leave Cloud alone but not wanting to intrude on his grief. It was impossible to hope that Cloud didn't see the remains of _people_ underneath the debris or the charred bones of farm animals unable to escape their pens or ropes. Then he paused, and especially hoped that Cloud didn't notice the circular burns on some of the bodies that were more suited to electromag weapons than fire. _What __**really **__happened here?_

No, Cloud just stood in the center of the town and asked, "Why?"

Zack wished to the gods that he knew what to say.

Eventually Cloud walked back to him, bangs covering his face as he stared at the ground and clenched a fist into the front of Zack's shirt. Zack put his arms around those bony shoulders and almost managed not to hug him too tightly.

"Now what," said Cloud, breath coming warm through the weave of the fabric.

"We go find the Promised Land."

As they were leaving, Cloud managed to pull himself away from Zack. Not completely, he let one of Zack's arms stay around his shoulders, but with the tears drying on his face he stood up straight and looked forward.

…

Sephiroth floated in a sea of green and tried not to think. If he did, then he'd get angry, and if he got angry then he would kill either himself or someone else.

Through the glass of the mako tank he could see Hojo and several lab-techs illuminated by the green glow and the lights of their computer arrays. Thick cables ran from the consoles to the tank, some of the thinnest ones all the way through the glass itself and into his skin. Live currents of electricity arcing through his body. Mako stinging his eyes and long nose. Paws hobbled so that his claws couldn't scratch at the glass. Whispers in his pointed ears of _freedom_, more powerful than the wires and the hobbles, pulling on every cell like lateral gravity. The full moon and endless forests and freedom.

But it was too much, too much for too long and he tried to howl out his misery, releasing only bubbles instead that rose very slowly through the thick mako, kicking with legs so weighted that he couldn't do more than twitch. A voice whispered and he _couldn't find her_. There was something in his head that wasn't right _and he couldn't find her_.

Hojo's lips were moving and the techs were scurrying around, but Sephiroth couldn't see them through wide-open eyes, just green and so much wrong. When the mako starting draining out through the floor of the tank Sephiroth was slowly lowered until he lay on the bottom in a loose ball of matted fur, too senseless to sit up. Hojo was shouting but he couldn't understand what he was saying. Humans sounded so strange, sometimes. Apes. Apes with opposable thumbs and far too much intelligence for their nature.

The longing was like an invisible string tied around his heart and leading off to some distant, unknowable point.

…

The moon was waxing towards fullness as Zack and Cloud ran through the snowfields, claws scoring deeply into the ice to propel them forward and the muscles in their haunches standing out strongly. Their fur shone under the moonlight, one black and one tawny, and the mountains soon gave way to long plains under their paws.

They stopped first in Rocket Town. Cloud kept his eyes down and trailed after Zack, who smiled and charmed the innkeeper. _Just because we can sleep outside well enough_, he whispered to the blond, _doesn't mean we have to_. Sleep that night was fitful, and eventually Zack slipped into Cloud's bed and wrapped himself around the smaller body trembling from nightmares. Despite himself, Cloud pressed against the chest at his back and curled up tighter.

The next morning Zack went out and exchanged his SOLDIER clothes for less conspicuous denim pants and some plain t-shirts. He also bought a simple bangle and a few materia from the supply shops. As he fitted it onto Cloud's wrist, he said, "Now don't you go haring off and killing all the monsters, you've gotta leave some for me."

"What materia are those?" the blond asked. Zack didn't think that, the few times Cloud had spoken, it had been any louder than 'quietly.'

"A Heal, a Graviga," he'd almost gotten a Fire before common sense kicked in, "and a Barrier. We good with those?"

"I've never used materia before."

So Zack took him out to the grassy plains surrounding Rocket Torn and taught him how to _listen _to the materia, to mentally reach out and draw up a spell. It could be exhausting, especially for beginners and depending on the power of the materia itself, but Zack had always had a private suspicion that wolves had an easier time of it than humans. True enough, Cloud was able to go on long after the human troopers in ShinRa would've collapsed, but then he too sprawled in the grass, bangs sticking to the sweat on his forehead and unable to help smiling with the giddiness that came from too many Cure spells at once. Zack was feeling a little giddy himself and his arms like jelly from hammering on Cloud's Barriers with the Buster sword. Large concave pockmarks littered the grass around them, filling the air with the scent of sun-warmed grass and earth.

Zack flopped down beside him and watched him examine the mithril plating that created an electromagnetic link between the materia and the bangle itself. "So why d'you want to be a SOLDIER?" he asked idly, then winced. Way to bring up potentially dangerous topics.

Except Cloud didn't seem to mind, just kept staring at the bangle and turning it around and around his wrist. "I wanted to prove that I wasn't just a monster," he murmured. "I wanted…I know it's stupid, but I wanted to be like General Sephiroth. I wanted to come home a hero."

He dropped his arms back to the ground and turned his head away. "I know it's stupid, okay? Just ignore me."

Zack turned onto his side and propped his head on a hand with a small smile. "Nah, that's not stupid at all, Spike. I think it's kind of awesome, actually."

"…Are you making fun of me?"

"Have I ever made fun of you? I mean, _actually _made fun of you?"

"…No."

"Okay then. I knew Sephiroth, y'know." Cloud immediately turned his head back, blinking up at him in surprise. "He was…" _A lot like you_. "Well, he could be really intimidating, all that black leather and being tall enough to hit his head on doorways, but when you got him on his own – man, he's got the strangest sense of humor, for one, so dry it could crack rocks. This one time I went into his office, he handed me this red rubber ball and said that if I didn't let him finish his paperwork he was going to throw it down the hallway, and if I didn't want the rest of ShinRa to see me chasing it then I'd better be quiet."

Cloud laughed. When he did, his eyes went bright and his smile a little crooked, almost wry. Zack decided he wanted to see Cloud laugh all the time.

"But he had a lot of trouble with other things," the SOLDIER went on more seriously. "He grew up in ShinRa, and while he could tell you ten different strategies for winning a war he had never had a hug until I showed up."

Something dark passed through Cloud's expression. He reached up to press a hand on Zack's chest, just over his heart, and said, "You always seem to know when someone needs you."

A lump formed in Zack's throat.

From Rocket Town they went southeast towards North Corel, where they helped the miners fix their broken-down train. With each day that passed Cloud got stronger, his bruises and wounds healing more quickly as the moon went through its phases, until he could run with only the barest limp.

A week later they left and went to the Gold Saucer, where it was discovered that Zack made an amazingly melodramatic Prince Charming and that Cloud, even when sulking like a thunderstorm, made a startlingly pretty Damsel in Distress.

"I _hate _you. I hate you _so much_."

Zack was laughing too hard in the actors' dressing room to reply. When Cloud, half-wearing a fluffy pink dress, socked him in the shoulder, he fell on the floor and just kept laughing.

It was also found that Cloud had a special talent with chocobos. Zack thought it might have something to do with the kid's small size and spiky yellow hair, but he liked living far too much to actually say so. Instead he contented himself with watching Cloud win race and after chocobo race, coming out each time flushed and grinning and ready to take on the next challenger. And he didn't do it for the prize money, either, instead giving it each time to Zack.

"Cloud, this is yours, you won it and you should keep it," he protested, but the blond just shook his head and pushed the money back towards him.

"I have what I want, Zack. You take it."

And really, when someone says something like that, how does one say no? So he kept the gil and used it for the things that they shared: the hotel room, miscellaneous supplies, dinners that he would take Cloud to on the edge of the Saucer, away from the center of noise and light.

At night they shared the same bed, tangled like puppies, one inevitably kicking the other in his sleep and starting a brief sleepy tussle before dropping back off. It was never spoken about – Cloud would turn red and scowl and pointedly start talking about the weather – and though he'd still wake up some mornings with dark shadows under his eyes from dreams, they were never as bad if Zack was there. Zack wasn't normally one to just let things lie there, but whenever he caught a glimpse of the new scars as Cloud dressed, he'd shut his mouth and say something about grabbing some breakfast.

Of course, just when things seem to be going right, they start to go wrong.

The owner of the Gold Saucer wasn't exactly a subtle man. Zack could see Cloud from the corner of his eye looking everywhere but at Dio, and Zack wished he could do the same, only morbid fascination kept drawing his eyes forward.

"Heard some rather interesting rumors about you, boy," he said to the SOLDIER. "Don't suppose you know anything about them?"

"Can't say I've heard them myself," said Zack casually, "but hey, if they want me to do another Prince Charming, I'm sure I could oblige."

Dio laughed and Zack told himself _look up, look up, look up! _"Don't be silly, boy, we couldn't have the big bad wolf play the hero's role!"

Several hands seized his arms. Zack's first instinct was to snarl and slam his elbow backwards into the first cop's face, but he couldn't when he saw that they had Cloud, too, who was spitting with fury but unable to break free. _Too many, they aren't taking any chances with us_, he realized grimly, seeing the rifles that were being trained on them by yet more guards. They were dragged into an elevator that took them down the Saucer, farther down than any of the guests were allowed, and the moment the doors opened they were shoved unceremoniously into bright sunshine and gritty sand.

"I'm sure ShinRa will pay a lot for your return, boy," yelled Dio, and then Zack and Cloud were left in Corel Prison.

"…Well, this isn't how I thought the day would end."

Cloud spat out a mouthful of sand. "Doesn't matter. It was bound to happen eventually. We shouldn't have stayed here so long."

Zack wanted to say, _But you were starting to smile again_, and couldn't. Cloud's gaze had become closed off, his body language wary, and there wasn't much he could say right now that wouldn't just run off such defensiveness like rainwater on glass.

So Zack stood up tall and smirked like a cocky son of a bitch, pulling on the trappings of top dog in front of the hardened men sizing up him and Cloud. They'd taken the Buster from him but he was a SOLDIER, and a wolf, and many other things besides that were working in his favor. _Cloud shouldn't be here, need to protect him_.

"I've heard of you," said one of the prisoners, a man with a scar crossing one eye and deep frown lines around his mouth. "People start whispering about wolves, it's kinda hard to miss. Was only a matter of time before you got sent down here."

"Sent to kill us all, I bet," snarled another. "Ain't good for nothin' but killin'. Shoulda known Dio would pull some shit like this."

Intently aware of Cloud standing just behind him, Zack raised his hands and said, "We aren't here to kill anyone. We were just jockeying in some of the races, taking in some of the sights."

"Wolves kill anything they can get their claws into, you couldn't race chocobos if you wanted to without eating them!"

"Look," Zack tried, forcing himself to be patient, "you don't want anything to do with us, we don't want anything to do with you. The two of us will stay over here, and no one has to get into any fights over this. I imagine ShinRa will be here soon anyway, so we won't even be here long."

The prisoners either whispered among themselves or stared back hatefully – fearfully – but no one stepped forward. Zack nodded and put an arm around Cloud, leading him in a wide perimeter around the men towards a shaded overhang made of plywood and canvas, cattycorner to the quicksand fence surrounding the prison. It offered about as much privacy as one could get in this place.

"Zack," Cloud whispered, "is ShinRa really going to come?"

"Bah, of course not," he started, but as he tried to push Cloud into the shadow of the overhang, Cloud clamped a hand on the plywood wall and gave him a sharp glare.

"Tell me the truth."

"…I don't know. I imagine Dio knows I'm also a SOLDIER, which means yes, he'll probably contact ShinRa if only to see if there's a price on my head."

Cloud's lips pursed, but he dipped his head in understanding and sat back on the sand against the flimsy wall, glancing out cautiously towards the prisoners that still stared at them. Too restless to sit, Zack leaned carefully against the plywood and looked off to the distance, not wanting to instigate anything by meeting someone's gaze but still keeping an eye on them.

After a while, Cloud asked, "What're we going to do?"

"I'll think of something," Zack replied with as much confidence as he could put into his voice. But there were miles of quicksand around the place that not even a wolf could cross on his own, and the only way out was through the elevator from which they'd been thrown. And depending on when Dio managed to get the word to Midgar, ShinRa troops could be here in less than twenty-four hours.

They might even send Sephiroth to hunt down a wayward, lupine SOLDIER.

_I can't let him be forced to choose like that_.

When the sun began to set, Zack finally sat down beside Cloud, who had his arms wrapped around his knees and his head tucked between them, making himself into a ball.

_I can't let them touch Cloud_.

He nearly had a heart attack when Cloud suddenly jerked upright and said, "Zack, I think I know what to do."

"What – Cloud, come back here!"

Cloud had taken off for the elevator, uncaring of the startled cries and reaching for weapons of the prisoners, and skidded to a stop in front of the terrified elevator guard.

"You need to let me up," he was saying as Zack came up beside him.

"I – I can't do that," the poor man stammered. "You don't understand, there are rules, and if I start breaking them then this whole place will become chaos – "

"In the chocobo jockey room I heard that some of the jockeys were prisoners here," the blond said breathlessly. "If they won their races, then they could go free. That's one of your rules, isn't it?"

"I guess, but – "

"And it doesn't say anything about wolves in those rules, so if you really want to keep things straight down here, you should let me go up."

"But – "

"If you want to keep things straight," Cloud said more slowly, "then you'd let a wolf follow that rule, otherwise he doesn't have to follow any of the _other _ones, now does he?"

The man blanched. "Okay, okay, fine, but only one of you can go up!"

Zack was still rather bewildered when Cloud whirled and flung his arms around his neck, standing up on his toes to whisper, "I'll do it, I can win, I'll get us out," before letting go and getting into the elevator. The SOLDIER didn't even have time to say something – _be careful, I know you can do it, oh my gods are you insane_ – before the doors were closing.

…

A girl named Ester had come to meet him at the top. Cloud listened silently as she went through the rules before breaking in with, "I want the SOLDIER to get his sword back, too."

She paused. "I'm not sure I can do that. Usually the terms are only for your freedom."

"Ester. Please."

He met her eyes, _willing _her to listen. Maybe it was because she saw more hardened criminals than a teenage kid every day, but she didn't seem so afraid of him, and after a long moment she smiled slightly and said, "I'll see what I can do."

When she left, Cloud found the chocobo he'd been racing the last few times and gratefully buried his hands into the downy feathers that lay beneath the stiffer outer ones. _Dellingr_, he'd secretly named him, and for a moment he rested his forehead against the bird's strong neck and breathed in the musty smell of feathers and greens. If chocobos were ever afraid of wolves, it was because wolves were a predator like any other not because they were different or strange or anything other than another animal. This one just blinked at him slowly with enormous blue eyes and started nibbling on his hair.

The call for the jockeys to line up at the beginning of the track came before Ester returned. Cloud swung himself up onto Dellingr's saddle and guided him towards the starting line, feeling his senses sharpen in response to the build of adrenaline, and if the other riders shifted nervously at his approach now that rumors of what he was had spread, he ignored them with the skill born from years of practice.

_You're not racing to run away anymore_, he told himself, _but for Zack. It's always for Zack_.

The gun went off.

There was something powerful about riding a chocobo. They could outrun any animal, any predator, and beneath the saddle and between his thighs Cloud could feel the earthy strength of the bird, the ease with which he moved at such a dangerous speed. It was instinct to know how to lean into a turn, how to let Dellingr have the reins so he could run without being held back. Cloud could smell the odd plastic turf of the track, the other chocobos, the sweat of the jockeys, the sugar and spice of the spectators' snacks and sodas; he could hear their cries over the roar of the wind in his ears, could taste all the little complexities of the racetrack's air. He felt like he could run and run and never find the end.

When he finished in first place, it was almost anticlimactic.

When Ester came to greet him in the cool-down area where he was walking Dellingr, she told him, "Both the SOLDIER and his sword are at the entrance. And, Cloud? Congratulations."

Then she hugged him. It was such a surprise that Cloud froze and didn't think to move until she'd already let him go.

"Cloud!"

He got swallowed up in another hug, this time by the much more familiar form of Zack, who was ranting, "I swear to the Planet that if you pull another stunt like this – "

Cloud was trying not to choke in the tightness of Zack's grip when several voices suddenly yelled, "_Stop them!"_

"Shit," Zack hissed, "Cloud, go out the back somewhere and meet me by the river southwest from here, they can't follow us that far – "

"_No_, Zack," Cloud snapped, wriggling his way free and grabbing a hold of Dellingr's reins, "he's strong enough, he can carry us both – "

"Surround the perimeter, make sure no one leaves or enters without the captain's express orders!"

"Cloud – !"

The blond was already swinging back up into the saddle and scooting as far forward as was comfortable for the chocobo. "Zack, shut the fuck up and get up here!"

Cursing to himself as the first ShinRa troops started spilling into the stables, Zack managed to scuttle up behind Cloud, wary of his long sword hitting the bird by accident. He'd barely managed to get an arm around Cloud's waist when Cloud tugged on the reins and barked, _"Hup!"_

Dellingr sprang forward with a loud _wark_, his enormous steel-like talons scattering the troopers like terrified mice, and took off like an arrow from a bow. Most of the Gold Saucer was made of wide open spaces to accommodate the crowds, and Zack couldn't help whooping aloud with the excitement of _escaping ShinRa _on a freaking _chocobo _from an entertainment park.

Cloud, on the other hand, was intent, automatically following the little physical cues from Dellingr to dodge people that couldn't jump out of the way fast enough or to duck a low-hanging neon sign. Shots were fired; one went through Zack's bicep, making him snarl with the sudden bloom of pain, but they didn't stop, and soon they were out of the Saucer and making across the quicksand before the troops could rally themselves together once more.

…

"_Ow_," said Zack quite emphatically. Cloud ignored him and poured more river water over the fresh bullet wound – the bullet had exited, thankfully – washing out the last of the black powder staining the red of blood.

They sat on the edge of the wide river that cut across the lower part of the continent while Dellingr grazed on the long grasses overhanging the bank. Except for Zack's sword and the dusty clothing on their backs, everything had been left in their hotel room back at the Saucer, but at least they were alone and not in custody under a sky slowly lightening with the dawn.

Cloud, thankfully, had been wearing the bangle that Zack had given him, which was small and simple enough to pass as a slightly gaudy bracelet if one didn't look too closely, and cast a few small Cures. He padded the remaining tear in the muscle with strips torn from his undershirt, about the cleanest article of clothing they had between them, and tied it in place with a longer strip. Zack flexed his arm experimentally and immediately winced.

"Idiot," Cloud muttered, who then squawked when Zack smacked him upside the head with his good arm. He squawked again when he was suddenly dragged into Zack's lap and held there with yet another embrace.

"You _ever _scare me like that again," the SOLDIER growled, "and I swear to the Planet that I will _hunt you down _and _scruffle your hair until you beg for mercy_."

"Um."

"_Do you understand me?"_

"…What was I supposed to do?"

"Not _that._"

Cloud went very quiet. The moment Zack's hold loosened, he squirmed away backwards and watched the SOLDIER carefully from the corner of his eye.

"Don't look at me like that, Spike," he sighed wearily. "I just. You scared me. Tomorrow I'll be singing your praises at how awesome you were, but right now all I can think about it is you going up that elevator without me and not having any idea if you were all right or even _alive _until that Ester chick came to get me. And then ShinRa was there and I'm going to be _shocked_ if I live to be thirty and haven't had a heart attack because _holy shit_."

Cloud kissed him.

"…Huh," he managed when Cloud pulled away, blushing furiously and looking anywhere but at Zack.

"I'm sorry," Cloud said so quietly it was almost impossible to hear him, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean – "

Unable to help rolling his eyes a bit, Zack put a hand on the back of Cloud's neck to haul him close and _kiss _him, firmly but gently, no tongue, just soft pressure and as much emotion as he could put into it.

"…Oh," said Cloud, blinking as though he'd left a dark room and entered a patch of sunlight, and Zack laughed, laughed and laughed until the fear finally left him and he could appreciate what Cloud had done, how brave he'd been to go up the elevator alone and get them out, how brave it was for him to have kissed first without warning or reassurance. The blond didn't take the laughter personally, and even grinned in the way that made his expression bright and his smile crooked.

"Now what?" he asked.

Zack said, "We'll go to Cosmo Canyon," and Cloud followed him like one follows the North Star.

…

Seventeen-year-old Cloud stood on the bluff overlooking the desert and scanned the rough road that wound its way towards Cosmo Canyon. The wind that rushed along the ground, between the mesas, and up the cliff-sides tugged at the black and blue feathers wound into his hair with thread and bright beads, tickling the edges of his ears.

"You're very impatient," Nanaki told him.

"Am not."

"Are too."

Cloud gave him a sour look.

Nanaki's tail wove back and forth in lazy contentment, brushing the sandy dirt, as he laughed in his deep, rumbling voice. "He's only been gone for a fortnight."

"I know." But after a year it was strange to sleep alone at night, to not feel another's warmth and heartbeat at his side. "I just need to make sure he's paying atten – "

_There._

Smirking fiercely, Cloud took off down the side of the mesa with sure footing, claws leaving deep scores in the rocks behind him. Nanaki was right behind him, letting out a howl, and Cloud couldn't help joining in with his own until the canyon echoed with their roars. They pounded up the wide road towards the returning trade caravan, and just before they passed the first cart Cloud was drawing his Zweihänder and bringing it down in a wide arc.

The sound of steel against steel rang out, startling some of the traders, but Zack was grinning as he forced Cloud back and leapt to the side of the road with the Buster in hand. "Honey, I'm home!" he cried, then yelped as the Zweihänder nearly took off his scalp. "Oi, is that any way to greet – "

The swords clanged again. Now that the traders could see Cloud properly, they just shook their heads and followed Nanaki up towards the village; neither of the wolves noticed, too absorbed in making sure the other didn't get too close with a weapon in hand.

"You been practicing with a girl again, Spike?" Zack called out as Cloud ducked under a wide swing.

"That girl could kick a SOLDIER's ass, Fair!" came the reply as the Zweihänder's hilt trapped the Buster's. When Zack caught Cloud's eye, they both lessened the pressure on their weapons so he could lean over them and give Cloud a solid, thorough kiss.

"You've been drinking that cactus juice again."

"Just to annoy you."

"I don't doubt that in the least, Spike. _Blech_."

The room they shared had a ceiling of tough green canvas, walls of tanned animal hide stretched over wooden posts, and just enough room for a bed, some chests, and their respective weapons. That night they lay in the bed facing one another, the light of the Cosmo Candle flickering faintly through the animal hide.

"It's getting worse," Cloud whispered as the sweat cooled on their bodies. Zack, propped up on one hand, paused in playing with the beads in Cloud's hair to look down at him. He didn't need to ask what Cloud was talking about.

"How bad?"

"Worse when you're not here. Nanaki said he found me trying to walk away from the village, but I don't remember it."

Zack let go of the beads so he could slide his hand through Cloud's hair and cradle the curve of his skull, thumb sweeping over the arch of a cheekbone. "What direction?"

"The same. Straight east."

_Towards Midgar._ Zack thought, _Planet, don't do this to me. Don't let Cloud end up like his mum_. Sleepwalking, going distant, forgetting herself because the longing in her heart was more powerful than her sense of self. _Don't let me come back to find him on the edge of a cliff._

"She sounds so sad, Zack," Cloud went on softly. "The moon, I mean. I don't…she's all alone. There aren't any wolves with her and she misses them, but she doesn't know why."

If the SOLDIER stopped to think about it, then yes, he knew what Cloud was talking about. Even when distracted by all the commotion of trading with the coastal towns he'd heard the same voice in his dreams, getting clearer each night; the voice of a woman lost and confused and singing of loneliness and the Promised Land. Only it seemed to hit Cloud harder, except Zack didn't know if it was because his mother had been that way or because of the amount of passive mako present in a reactor town.

He ran his free hand down Cloud's bare side to fit it possessively over a bony hip and pressed his face to the curve of Cloud's neck. The blond automatically wrapped his arms around Zack, curling as closely together as physical bodies allowed.

"You can't go away, Cloud," Zack murmured into his skin, "not without me, got it? You're stuck with me until you get sick of me, and then you're even more stuck."

There wasn't much to say to that, so Cloud just tightened his hold.

…

Cloud would often disappear for hours up in the planetarium, in which Zack had little interest, with Nanaki. Nanaki would tell him about the stars, and the planets, and about their own Planet as well, and Cloud listened closely, silently trying to understand why wolves were born with a broken heart.

_Father Sun has blessed us_, Nanaki sometimes said, _and Mother Planet has provided_.

Cloud sometimes shared stories from the Nibel mountains. _The humans had a wolf-god named Fenrir, who was the son of the Trickster. All the other gods and goddesses feared him so much that they had their greatest warrior tie him down, and the humans believe that at the end of the world Fenrir will get loose and destroy them_.

Nanaki would ask, _What do you believe?_

Cloud would reply, _I believe that eventually, one way or another, we'll all know for sure._

In the village was a girl named Raine who was deadly with a rapier. When Zack was away protecting the Canyon's trade caravans from monster attacks, Cloud would train with her, always startled by the differences in sparring someone with such a quick and light blade versus the enormous Buster.

"You're lucky," she once told him with a bittersweet tone as Cloud danced backwards away from her rapier.

"Why do you say that?"

"When you have someone you love so much, don't ever, ever let him go."

Cloud looked in her sad eyes and promised seriously, "I won't."

…

The day everything changed again, it started out like any other.

At dawn, Cloud went to check on the village chocobos and give Dellingr a good grooming, earning happy _warks _and gnaws on the spikes of his hair. Then he helped the younger people of the village with the chores, like drawing fresh water from the wells and bringing in fuel for the Candle, before the heat of the day became too strong. At midday he was in the Shildra Inn kitchen, helping to make the buffet lunch that was always spread for the whole of the community. Zack came in covered in grime and gore from the monsters that always prowled the edges of the canyon, and Cloud chased him off to change into fresh clothes before Zack could grab him into a wrestling hold and share the filth.

After lunch, Cloud went out with Zack into the canyon and got drilled on his sword _kata_; his Zweihänder was a broadsword that was smaller and lighter than the Buster, but relatively similar enough that the Buster's _kata _could be adapted to suit him. Zack, naturally, pushed him until Cloud was ready to faint in the heat, and then promptly ambushed him with a generous helping of gropes that left them both breathless.

"You _always _do this," Cloud groused as he looked around for the sword harness that Zack had stripped off of him.

Zack lounged in the shade of a tall cactus like a housecat and unashamedly leered at Cloud. "Hey, man, you're the one that goes around wearing nothing but pants and those hair things Nanaki gave you."

"It's hot. And I wear shoes, too."

"Those moccasins don't count."

"Why not?"

"Why would they?"

"…Because they go on your feet to protect them and, therefore, fulfill the definition of 'shoes'?"

"Bah," Zack declared.

"You can't just go around denying the _definitions _of things if you don't like them."

"Why not?"

Cloud found the harness and slipped it over his shoulders again before giving Zack a wry look. "How do you always manage to drag me into these debates?"

"Because I'm _really _sexy. Ha! Can't deny that one, can you?"

Well, no, but that wasn't the point. Cloud stood over him and plopped down on his chest, making Zack _oomph_ and beg for mercy. He poked the SOLDIER on the nose and opened his mouth to say something when his eyes suddenly went very large.

"Cloud…?"

It hit them both with the force of a train – a woman's voice, but screaming with fury as though the moon had erupted into flames, demanding the Promised Land, spitting with the force of her frustration and solitude. Cloud barely managed to avoid knocking his head against Zack's chin as he toppled forward with a small whine in his throat, nearly senseless, and Zack grabbed hold of him as though trying to find a life preserver in a storm. "_Nonono_," Cloud was whispering, "_not you, you're wrong, unnatural, not right – "_

The voice abruptly shut off like a hand had been slapped over an open mouth. Zack was left panting, staring up at the top of the cactus in a daze and managing a weak, "Holy shit." It took a minute for him to realize that Cloud wasn't stirring.

"Cloud? _Cloud?_"

When Zack stumbled into the village with an unconscious Cloud in his arms, they were hustled into the nearest _pueblo_ and into the bed by the owner herself.

"Zack? What happened? Did he get heat stroke?"

"No, it's…I don't know, it was something else. It was wrong, like the Planet…Cloud said it wasn't natural…" He pushed his nose farther into Cloud's scruff, needing the warm contact and the scent of living flesh to push away the image of a pale, unconscious body. _Gods, what just happened?_

He was dimly aware of someone calling for Elder Hargo. He pressed himself against Cloud and sang quietly, like Missus Strife used to, about a place where the moon was always full and a soul could run and run forever without ever reaching the end of freedom. The scars that had left lighter patches of fur in Cloud's coat, delivered by a chain and a man's fear for his daughter, were suddenly so much more obvious in Zack's eyes, only this time the wounds were on the inside and Zack couldn't follow him there.

The wolves were curled up nose-to-nose when Elder Hargo came in, followed by Nanaki. The two shared a glance, and while the Elder ushered out the other people Nanaki padded over to the bed, respectfully staying a few paws' length away.

"Zack? What happened?"

Triangular ears twitched. "There was a voice," he said lowly. "She spoke of the Promised Land, but there – she was so _angry_ and hateful, it was like getting smacked with a sledgehammer."

"Do you know who or what she is?"

"No, there's something…Cloud said unnatural, and I can't think of any other word to describe it." Zack paused, then said even more quietly, "It came from the east. When Cloud wakes up, we have to go to Midgar." Even though the thought of it made him both sick and terrified.


End file.
